Fate: Annals of the King
by Skyray
Summary: A century has passed since the last of the Fuyuki Grail Wars. Archer, along with a slew of totally new players, find themselves in London, at the start of the 16th known Grail War since the first War of Fuyuki.
1. Campaign: Revival

Author's note: my spelling check software uses the English of my country (Canadian). Thus I am sorry if many words seem like they are mis-spelled. Other that that, I totally welcome strict and demanding criticisms but kindly own up to it if you make one. I sincerely hope my first story is of passing quality, and I will strive to improve.

PS: Archer doesn't appear in chapter 1. If you are like me and love Archer, feel free to read chapter 2 before chapter 1. It does not affect the flow of the story. In fact you can also read the chapters with the Fate heading and the Campaign heading separately. There is a chronological order but it's not strict.

***Story Begins Here***

Gunshots coupled with sounds of breaking glass. Desperate howls that knew no dignity accompanied the wet crunching of bones. Floating upon a chorus of gang slogans, ripe with loaded obscenities, was a jaded sense of resignation. To Aria Mirai, it was a day like any other.

Lying limp on the long-cracked asphalt of the alleyway, Aria looked up between the run-down walls to either side. The decrepit brick walls, poorly cemented ribs of long-dead structures, had either the generosity or miserliness of leaving her with the view of a single strip of the polluted night sky.

She felt cold, and inched her hands towards the warm, drenched part of her shirt covering her abdomen. Through the familiar reek of trash that was all around, a faint iron-like smell lingered in her nose, coming and leaving like an impatient spirit waiting to take her away. A similar taste appeared in her mouth following a few gurgling coughs, but the pain was dim and dull, overshadowed by her drowsiness and sickening nausea. She wanted to throw up what was left inside her, but she has been starving, and it didn't feel like she had much left to puke. Then the coldness came again, colder than before.

It would have been the same as any other day, except she was going to die. But what did it matter?

***Scene Break***

Aria woke up to the sound of leaking pipes, on a soft mattress, surrounded by a prevailing darkness pierced only by a ghastly beam of light shooting in from the smudged glass high above. She took a breath of the stagnant warehouse air, and let out a cough, but pain shot through her and she nearly bit her tongue. The morphine high was long gone, leaving only a nausea that did nothing to fight the ache from her bullet wound. She felt around her belly, and traced the strapped-down feel to the fresh bandages tied around her waist.

Then she realized her clothes have been changed. She tensed up for a bit at what this might imply, but then let out a relaxed sigh of near indifference. If whoever saved her decided to have his way, then that was that and nothing could be changed. Plus she was still alive, and not that many things mattered more.

All the while outside, the discordant symphony of urban violence played into the midnight. The nerve-wracking sounds of routine mass hysteria was normally something Aria could have easily shut out, but after what happened when she was last awake, it was no longer so simple. Every gunshot she heard was the gunshot that blew through her side. Every angry profanity came from the gangster that fired on her with no reason. Every scream belonged to the same children that were cut apart by crossfire in front of her eyes. Even all the lights in the streets looked like the raging fires that swallowed house after worn-down house...

She opened her eyes again, and the day was still dark. She seemed to have fallen asleep while thinking back on what happened to her. Or perhaps she fell back asleep first, and the sounds of street violence played with her sleeping mind. But either way, even if her recollection was within her dream, it was nevertheless an accurate account for what happened. Bandits and rioters, vicious gangsters all, went into a frenzy and shot anything that moved. Houses were razed, children were killed, and Aria herself was shot and left for dead.

Those punks were really stupid, Aria thought to herself. If they found the morphine on her, they might have made a few extra bucks, or get out a good shot, if they were into it. She breathed nervously and groped her pockets. Then she froze, and swore loudly, her shrill voice reverberating within the walls.

"Shhh! Quiet!"

Aria was startled, the tense muscle around her wound causing her a great deal of pain. She collapsed back onto the mattress, and understood that whoever was speaking in the dark must have been the man who brought her here.

"Do you have my morphine?"

"Lower your voice!" The young man's voice hissed. "And yes I took it. It's bad for you."

Aria became agitated. "Yeah, no shit" As she twitched about, she put a hand on her stomach to alleviate the torturous pain.

"Morphine makes you breath slower, decreasing the amount of oxygen delivered to your body. This effect slowly kills you over the course of about thirty years."

"Thirty years." Aria scoffed bitterly. "I'm going to be dead when I'm thirty."

"Not if I can help it."

"Thank you for the lecture, alright? Here you are dressed up all tidy, like one of those nobles that sell me this crap, and you're telling me to-" Her voice trailed off as she let out a hacking cough.

"I'm not a noble, that's for sure. I don't own any gangs."

"Then what's with all the big talk?"

"Never mind that. You're hurt, and should rest."

"Just what do you want?"

"Take care of you." There was a creepy seriousness to his voice.

"Huh." Aria scoffed. It would be a ridiculous idea, seeing how stupid he sounded. She stopped talking back, and closed her eyes to sleep.

***Scene Break***

The dull greyness of noon beamed into the warehouse as the young man opened a tiny crack in the doors. Strings of light spiked out from the door's edges, flash-lighting the dust that floated all around. Aria would have still slept, but the squealing of the door woke her up. Scrubbing her eyes, she rolled her legs off the mattress and slowly sat up, prodded by the nagging pain in her side.

"The hell do you want?" She was annoyed. This man obviously wanted something, and Aria was tired of trying to guess. Maybe she was being ungrateful, but so what? Here was a guy who has stripped her while she was out cold, said weird things, and is now keeping her in a dark room like looted furniture. Who wouldn't be upset?

No answer from the silhouette in the leaking light. A stupid, awkward boy, that's what he had to be. If he's not a noble, then he must have looted and read a book or two. He's probably a rat a like herself, living in a dark corner of the city fringe, prying some kind of trade that has kept him alive till now.

Aria stood up and slowly made for the door. "This is the last time I'm going to ask. What exactly do you want from me?"

She saw nothing more than a stir from the man; apparently he still didn't get the point. "I'm going to leave," she declared, "so it's your last chance to fess up. If you don't talk straight, then I don't owe you anything."

Even as the man began to make his motion to stop her from going out, Aria turned around at gave a hard stare at the air around him. A small burst of flame popped in front of the man's face, and he staggered back several steps. Aria made for the door, as fast as her injured body would allow. She counted on the creep being surprised at her being a mage; usually a flash show like this against unwary strangers would slow them down enough for her to get away.

"Wait!" The young man was up on his feet in an instant, showing no signs of shock. An unusually commanding tone weaved its way into his meek speech, compelling Aria for a moment to stop in her tracks.

"If you are sure you want to leave, I cannot stop you. But I strongly advise you not to at this time."

"Why?" Even as she asked, Aria wondered if she should have just ignored him and walked out instead.

"You will not believe this, but there is a war that is going on in the world outside."

"What?" Aria couldn't believe her ears. Time to just turn around and leave, she thought to herself. More words on this weirdo would just be a waste.

The streets outside were quiet under the dull grey sky, but Aria did not find them empty. The cracked asphalt was strewn with pieces of broken bodies, bones and innards crushed beyond recognition. As the strange-talking man followed her outside, their eyes stopped at the only pair of living souls in the tableau. Perched on a massive piece of rubble carved out from the roadside ruins, a lean, gaunt women stood beside a red-haired young man, about as old as the one on Aria's side.

The redhead fixed his cold glare on Aria and the man behind her. At a light gesture from his hand, the lean woman charged forward, brandishing her bladed gauntlets. Her eyes was glowing a bright red, and her mouth hung half open, as if unable to contain the ruthlessness within her. Aria reacted quickly to her murderous intent, casting a burst of exploding air in front of the assailant in the same way she did in the warehouse a minute ago. But the weak pop of fire did little to slow the attacker down, and the killer's fist was now but a hair's length from Aria's head.

A pistol headshot from Aria's tailgater had the dangerous woman briefly stunned. "Get away, now!" He shouted, grabbing Aria by the wrist and giving her a tug. Aria's reactions were fast, and did not miss the beat as she did an about-face and raced down the street, with her twice-time life-saver running closely behind her. Pain shot through her body, but she instinctively suppressed it and kept on. An explosion rocked the avenue behind them, but they did not look back. They ran for several blocks until the man told Aria to stop and step off the road. Again he spoke with his clipped and commanding tone, and the thought of contradicting him never crossed Aria's mind until a while after she did what she was told. Probably the wound is dulling my senses with pain, she thought. It took all her effort to push the terrible pain to a corner of her mind - she simply didn't have the energy to bicker with the creep.

"Take cover here," he told her, climbing through the broken front glass of a long-abandoned eatery. Aria followed behind, carefully avoiding cutting herself on the jagged glass. The chairs and tables inside have long been looted clean, leaving only the half-broken counter near the door. Aria helped herself to it, propping herself against it in near collapse. She suddenly felt a compulsive agitation that was separate from the pain of her injuries. Realizing the source of her discomfort, she turned back towards the strange man.

"Give me my shit, won't you?"

The man answered with a parade of horribles. "Morphine is a depressant chemical that breaks your kidneys, lowers your breathing, increases pressure in your head, and poisons your blood to lethal levels..."

"Fuck you." Aria moaned, slipping into her uncouth alley-speak as she sank down on the ground. She has been trying to quit for a while now, but she had a craving coming on. She couldn't fight it on her own, but nor did she want to go to this big-talking bastard for his problems.

"...it is highly addictive, making you consistently break your promises to yourself to quit. It induces euphoria, compelling you to introduce the substance to what few friends you have made without forethought. It makes you unable to use magic, and hence unable to save people around you." His tone was cruelly factual, expounding on everything his apparent victim did not want to face. Finally to rub it all in, he added, "nevertheless, if you absolutely order me to give it back to you, I will comply."

"Are you done?" Despite her best efforts to sound indifferent, the remark came out in sobs.

***Scene Break***

In spite of the chaotic gang rivalries that raged nightly in the streets of the slums, the modest hideout went on unmolested for the next two days. But to Aria Mirai, a world of hurt was already with her, right on the scavenged mattress where she lay. The withdrawal symptoms started with a terrible nausea, but quickly ramped up to the feeling that her innards were ripping themselves apart. The mysterious man watched over her, cleaning her sheets by the hour as her body continued to expel fluids of all kinds. All the while she simply lay there, sometimes kicking her legs involuntarily, phasing in and out of coherence and consciousness, and feeling a sense of shameful gratefulness whenever lucidity returned. For the entire time the man went about his caretaking, never once flinching at the obviously distasteful task.

"Sorry, your name again?" Aria asked weakly for the third time on the same day, as a tantalizing shred of clarity paid her mind another brief visitation.

"Heinz."

"Heinz." She managed to roll the name on her tongue before the pain in her abdomen exploded once more, the chemical imbalance mixing in with the hurt of bullet trauma. Heinz gave her his hand, and she squeezed it as hard as she could. As the pain slowly abated, her tired body collapsed into sleep once again.

***Scene Break***

Aria held a gun in her hand, the rare kind used only by the bodyguards of the most powerful nobles. Thunderous shocks echoed all around her, and chunks of cemented ceiling crashed down not far from where she hunched. Then there was an ominous buzz and another explosion. Figures emerged from an adjacent building; but with a deafening sound and a burst of fire and smoke, the poor bastards had their skins coating the cracked pavement. Opposing figures emerged from another structure across the street, and the heads of several of them promptly exploded.

She had to do something - she could not stand watching people die. She tried to cast spells somehow, around the gun-totting gangsters firing on each other, so that all their weapons would melt in their hands. But her magic just wasn't strong enough - it was as if her intervention had no effect at all. As the structure continued to slowly collapse piece by piece, she jumped out a broken window, and into the rubble-filled street. She landed behind an odd barricade of strange bags. The oddly-dressed gangsters crouching behind the silly wall turned around at her and simply nodded stoically, as if all emotions have been stripped from their eyes. As she struggled to make sense of her surroundings, she heard a sickening crunch from behind her. She turned around, and saw that someone behind her has been shot dead, lying face-up with a bullet hole neatly placed in his forehead.

Aria ducked down in alarm. How did the bullet find its way to the man behind her, without having hit her first? Then it occurred to her that the gunmen around her weren't greeting HER at all - they were addressing the now-dead man behind her. Confirming her haunch, the crouching gangsters turned around and cast startled glances at the body of their slain leader, their gazes passing right through her.

More gunfire; men from a different gang charged down the street, and were mowed down as soon as they came into the open. Aria waved and screamed at everyone around her, and even tried to tackle a few. But her voice and touch went right through everyone, as if they ... as if SHE was a spectre.

She dreamed on, a mute witness to troubling scenes that she struggled to understand.

***Scene Break***

Aria woke up in a fresh robe the next morning, greeted by a body full of aches. But as she lay there quietly, keeping her eyes closed for a measure of peace and respite. She soon noticed that the spiking bursts of agony and spasms did not return, and she exhaled loudly with a sense of relief.

She opened her eyes, saw that Heinz has fallen asleep on the floor beside her, and took a good look at him for the first time. His long black hair tangled in a mess around his lean head, and his rounded chin was tucked towards his neck. He looked young; younger than her, perhaps just over twenty. Aria thought back to the last several days, and blushed inside.

When Heinz woke, he got to his feet in a few blinks. Even fresh from sleep, his grey eyes looked energetic and radiant.

"How do you feel?"

"Better..." Aria managed a faint but sincere smile. "...thanks."

"You did it." He extended his hand.

Aria took it, and dragged herself up. The feeling of airborne mana around her felt stronger than ever, and she knew that she won't be missing what she put behind.

"I, uh, don't know what else to say." Aria tried to put on her usual aloof face. "I owe you this, I guess."

"I suppose." Heinz chuckled good-naturedly. "True, that it would be impossible to quit it yourself and survive. I found no syringes on you, so I knew you were already trying." He shrugged. "Anyhow, that's behind you now."

"Why did you save me so many times?" She hasn't seen a nice person for quite a while, and she still had the urge to feel slightly suspicious despite all that's happened.

"I guess I have the same wishes as you." Heinz shrugged again. "I don't like to see people die from wars and struggles."

Aria frowned. War. Again with that word. "Why do you keep saying that? There is no such thing as war anymore. The concept died before you were born."

"Oh, no." Heinz looked up solemnly. "There are still wars, fought in places you can't readily see."

Aria felt inclined to take his words seriously, but it was hard to grasp. "I've read a bit of history here and there, and I know that ever since the Omega Event, war has become impossible somehow. You must have heard of that story too, right?"

"War has become impossible." Heinz repeated her words thoughtfully. "Do you know why they say that?"

Aria looked at him and widened her eyes, inviting Heinz to elaborate.

"When scholars talk about wars," Heinz continued, "they mean a series of deadly conflicts that put thousands of lives on the line at once. People think that's no longer possible today, because humanity has been reduced to clumps of survivor settlements centred around their former cities. People only say that wars are impossible, only because it doesn't seem possible anymore to kill large groups of people at once in an organized or routine fashion."

"Basically," he continued, seeing Aria's struggle to understand. "if two gangs had a million people each, and fought each other, there'd be a war. But since gangs don't involve more than a few hundred people, there can't be wars."

"Right, I get that." Aria nodded. "Because not enough people can be killed for the same reason at the same time."

"Precisely. But that's only what people THINK." Heinz paused and let his words sink in. "But the truth is, in the face of a source of magical power you haven't heard about, the lives of everyone in the world dangles by a thread."

"There's a mage that can kill everyone in the world with a spell?" Aria thought she could understand and perhaps imagine what Heinz was saying, but she still could not believe her ears.

"Not a mage." Heinz shook his head in a matter-of-fact manner. Glancing around to make sure no one snooped outside of their shelter, he lowered his voice and spoke with deadly earnest.

"Not a person, but an existence known as the Holy Grail."

"What's that?" Aria opened her mind as much as she could, as she prepared for stranger and stranger stories.

Heinz rubbed his chin, seemingly thinking of a good place to start. "You've heard of the Association of Mages?"

"No, not really."

"It means exactly what it sounds - an organization of mages. You can think of them as a gang, except their members are found in every city of the world."

"That's a big group of people. How come I've never seen even one?"

"They hide themselves for safety. As you know, most people don't know magic, and would likely hurt a mage out of paranoia. This group wants to make sure that not too many non-magic users become aware of magic, just so that magi can be kept safe."

"Makes sense." Aria understood, but she didn't see where it was going.

"But," Heinz continued, "preservation is not their greatest goal. The greatest goal of any mage is to become so well-versed in magic, that his or her very existence can come face-to-face with the ultimate truth." Seeing the confused look on Aria's face, he elaborated. "People in the association believe that there is some entity, beyond our imagination, that provides a cause for the universe and everything within it. Everything there is, including people, things, ideas, and events, are believed to be born out of this mysterious entity, and are believed to return to this entity after they disappear from the universe. Typical magi want to see this entity for themselves, and through its infinite knowledge, attain great power."

"So it's like a spirit world."

"Yes, but not in the loose sense talked about in common language. This spiritual world is not some invisible realm with fairies that a good mage can tap into. This spiritual world, if it can be called that at all, is so much more enlightening and far removed from common life, that anyone who manages to see this entity could obtain enough knowledge to change the world however he or she wanted."

Aria's eyes lit up cautiously. "So those magi are trying to find something that'll let them grant their own wishes?"

"Exactly." Heinz gave a vigorous nod. "That entity they seek is called the Root, and the general name of any means for a mage to reach the Root, is called a Holy Grail."

"Where does the 'war' come in?" Aria asked, making an effort to return to the original topic of discussion.

"One of the greatest sufferings of Man is the drought of imagination..." Heinz caught himself in the middle of a dreamy declaration, and carried on with a straight face. "It is nearly impossible for a sane mind to conceive of how to create a Holy Grail. Furthermore, most Holy Grails supplied by the imagination of a mediocre mage will fail flat out. Therefore, it is much easier for the common mage to find and hijack someone else's Grail, rather than making their own. This is where war arises. Many mages will fight over a handful of Grails, out of sight from the rest of the world. If a war is a conflict that puts more than thousands of lives at risk, then this can be called a war because the stakes are as high as what Man can conceive. A winner of the war may be able to wish away millions of lives, or even the very natures that allow us to exist."

"And I guess they are fighting over Grails even now?"

"They are. And in time, someone will win."

"But if the winner makes a good wish..." Aria suggested, trying to sound hopeful.

"Do you know what has happened the second last time someone won a true Grail?"

Aria was silent. She was afraid to know.

"The world went from the green and blue planet your grandparents knew, to this grey ruin that you see now."

So the whole world as it is, came from someone's wish? Aria was speechless and she reeled in shock. So the misery in the slum-dwellers that she lived amongst, the pointlessness of their lives, and the gang-ruled society around them, were all arbitrary things wished on a whim. How could this be believed? Perhaps Heinz didn't know what he was talking about? But deep down, she somehow knew that he told the truth.

"Can you make sure that nobody ever 'wins' again?" Aria asked.

"That's impossible. The best you can do is to win it yourself the next time."

"How would you win?"

"The rules of engagement are simple. Form an army of two, identify the Grail, fight for it, and win it."

"Army of two?"

"Yes, an army of two, with a master and a servant. That's the tradition to honour the Grail."

Aria's eyes narrowed. "Army of two, master and servant... so THAT's what you're here for. You've planned this all along, didn't you?"

Heinz opened his mouth to speak, but could not form words at length. He tried to look away, then forced his head to turn back. He found his voice eventually, but it sounded markedly more timid.

"I'm sorry." Heinz lowered his head. "It's just that I... really wanted to fight alongside you, because I think the two of us can win. But I know I have no excuse for having kept you in the dark, and I accept your rejection of my offer as the punishment I deserve."

"Nah, I'll do it." Aria stood up and put her hands on his shoulders. "You've helped me so much, I owe you this." She caught herself inching closer to the big boy, and pulled back a step with slightly flushed cheeks. "You're giving me something to do, anyways."

There was an awkward silence, and Aria started again, this time more hesitantly. "You've been good to me and all… and I think you're a good guy…"

"I'm not as great as you think..." When Heinz stopped saying complicated things, he looked like nothing more than an awkward, twenty-year-old boy.

"Hey, don't get me wrong, I'm just saying you're a good guy." She cleared her throat and tried to look away. "Anyways, I'll be your servant."

"Actually, you'll have to be the master." Heinz stated matter-of-factly. "I am not a mage, so I can't be a master."

"Oh... but I don't know exactly what to do."

"That's okay." Heinz assured her. "We can think of what to do together."

"Okay, then it's settled." Aria extended her hand to Heinz, ready to seal their contract with a handshake.

"Are you sure? You don't even know what my wish to the Root is."

"I'm sure." Aria grabbed Heinz's hand and shook it. "But tell me anyway."

"I want the world to come back together, and undo some harm done by the past Grails."

"Good enough for me. I think I'd want the same." Aria sat down with a faint, sincere smile that had a healthy mix of determination. It didn't matter that she didn't know what she was getting herself into. Even if it's something as far-fetched as saving the world, or something as grim and gritty as fighting a war, so long as Heinz can start her off on a new life, she would work hard for that.

He also seemed really smart and reliable... but Aria tried not to think about it too much.


	2. Fate: Archer

Author's Note: long note; moved to the end.

***Story Begins Here***

For Ervin Cambrian, the ruins of Old London were a place of retreat. Only a mage or a religious folk would wander this far out from the new city centre, beyond even the slums, a place where not even gangsters often bothered with. Here, magi found safe havens amongst the countless abandoned structures, within where they could practice their arts out of sight. For Ervin, this was no exception.

Standing on the roof of the long-abandoned Parliament Building, Ervin's eyes fixed on the streets below. A golden-armoured woman, with a white-robed man following behind her, brutally killed half a dozen meditating magi in seconds. When a girl in worn denim emerged from a storehouse nearby with a similarly-dressed man behind her, the murdering duo turned on them immediately. The denim-clad man shot the armoured woman at point blank, and ran down the street with his female companion. Impossibly, the armoured woman showed no sign of injury, and chased after her prey.

People who are in need of help were passing right under his eyes, and Ervin would not let himself watch on and do nothing. Taking out an ornate pistol from his blue-and-white trench coat, he channelled raw mana into its magazine, infusing bullets with energy to counter the magical being that the armoured woman likely was. He took aim, fired, and the shot hit home with the sound of a small explosion. It did little though, other than goading her to attack him instead. Using her bladed gauntlets, she scaled up the sandstone walls through brute force. Ervin's attacks had little consequence, and soon he came face-to-face with his adversary.

On the roof, she stood between Ervin and the only broken window that led back inside, cutting off his escape. Accepting what this has come down to, Ervin steadied himself, drew his sword, and studied the young woman in front of him. She had a thin, bony face, with very modest nose and lips. Two glowing red orbs sat behind her narrow-slit eyelids, and her mouth was half open as if she was waiting for a meal. The blowing wind stroked her dark hair to sparsely cover a good deal of her face, giving her the looks of a killer who has abandoned even grooming, just so that she could focus more on the shedding of blood.

Bloody villainy veiled with a hauntingly fair appearance - she was surely the handiwork of a demented summoner. Ervin tried to reconcile the feelings of being smitten and repulsed, and told himself that he had to do the poor creature a favour by ending her wretched existence as an enslaved murderer. But the armoured woman gave him no time for his fancies, and assailed him with a savage downward slice even as he gaped. Ervin snapped together and gave a forceful parry, but the force of her smash was so overwhelming that he lost balance on the sloped roof, and began to fall down towards the ground six storeys below. As his body picked up speed, Ervin's mind flooded with a host of instinctive rejections, denials, and panic, at the fact that this was the end. But a thread of thought reminded him of how miserable he often was - perhaps then, this was a good thing after all.

As he closed his eyes, a pair of strong arms caught him in midair, and slowed his fall. As he was dropped gently on the asphalt, Ervin opened his eyes in confusion.

A young-to-middle-aged, orange-haired figure, clad in a lean black breastplate worn over a red outfit, towered over him. The man's face was turned towards the armoured woman, who now dive-bombed at them from up high. Stepping in front of Ervin to cut the woman off, the stranger raised his hands away from the overcoat around his waist, and a pair of exotic swords appeared in his grips. The pair of weapons mirrored each other in shape, with simple, solid hilts and short, elegant blades. One blade was white with black trim near the hilt, and the other had the opposite scheme. As they swung up to meet the armoured woman's bladed gauntlets, the sounds of clashing metal were the only clues to a series of exchanges that were too fast for the eye to see. As Ervin got to his feet, he noticed the approach of the armoured woman's companion, no doubt the demented summoner in question. He looked like a man about Ervin's own age, a short, thin, red-haired figure wearing a bloodied white coat. His eyes darted from Ervin's unknown saviour to Ervin himself, and opened his mouth in a savage grin.

"Berserker! Kill the master!"

The woman sidestepped the swordsman in red, and charged Ervin at full speed. The nameless swordsman barely caught up with her, and pushed Ervin out of the way a split second before the bladed fist landed. The weapon has drawn blood - from the swordsman's exposed back.

There was no way for Ervin to stand by and watch while a complete stranger gets diced from trying to save him. He gripped his arming sword and jumped into the fray. The pretty creature, apparently named 'Berserker,' dispatched Ervin with a swift slash across his stomach. First came the shock, then the wetness on his skin, and then the intense pain. As he struggled to stand, waiting for Berserker to finish him, the swordsman grabbed him roughly by the waist, and vaulted into the air. Feeling the ground depart from under him, farther and farther away, Ervin felt a sense of nauseating vertigo, mixed with heart-stopping pain. Ervin screwed his eyes shut, and even before the landing, fainted into dreamless sleep.

***Scene Break***

The pain woke him up, and Ervin found himself in a broken, unfamiliar room. He lay face up on a collapsed couch, and the red-clad stranger stood over him. Seeing him open his eyes, the stranger held him down gently with one hand, conveying that he should wait before trying to move. As Ervin's senses returned to him fully, he saw a short staff gradually coming into existence in the swordsman's raised hand. Its gnarled shaft was the colour of bark, and the carved figure of an emerald serpent coiled around it. Then, as quickly as it formed, the staff disintegrated right in front of his eyes. As it did so, a peculiar sensation washed over Ervin's wounds. What was once pain became a mere itch, and soon even that gave way to the complete lack of discomfort.

Ervin was truly amazed, for this foreign-looking swordsman was clearly a master mage. After a few of moments of simply staring, Ervin realized that he hasn't even uttered a word of thanks. "Thanks a ton, mate," he managed as he got up, giving a good-natured smile and offering his hand up for an icebreaking shake. "I'm Ervin."

Aloofly, the swordsman stood stiff and studied him before taking the extended hand in his own. He spoke with more than a hint of a foreign accent, but it was clear that he didn't need any kind of additional magecraft to speak Ervin's language fluently.

"I am the servant Archer, and by my master's request, I have come fourth. Are you my master?"

"Oh." Ervin habitually scratched his blonde head, as an intelligent frown formed above his bright green eyes. "You're a summon. But summoned by whom?"

"You are not aware?" The swordsman who called himself Archer frowned, and appeared to ponder briefly. "Interesting. So it appears that you have not summoned me consciously."

"You say it's me, but I'm not a summoner." Ervin was slow in coming around. "Plus, shouldn't there be a proof of contract of some kind between the summoner and the summon?"

"There are three command seals on your hand; they should be proof enough." Archer continued to study Ervin as he made his one-line answers.

Ervin finally noticed the new mark he bore on the back of his left hand. There were three glowing red runes - a shield rune in the centre, a griffin rune to its left, and an unicorn rune to its right. "Oh dear," he remarked after a long pause. "What's the story?"

"No disrespect, master." Archer addressed Ervin, and continued to size him up. "But you're rather behind in the way of being informed." The summoned warrior sighed, and made himself comfortable on a battered couch. "No matter, we'll remedy that now."

"Long story short," Archer began, "the Root has selected you to participate in a war for the Holy Grail. The prize of winning is a means to commune with the Root directly, and in doing so gain the power to have your wishes come true. The objective of the war is to eliminate all other contestants, either by killing their servants or killing the contestants themselves."

"All this talk of the Root." Ervin inquired. "Is the Association behind this? Are they the refs of the game?"

Archer simply shrugged. "The Association has been involved heavily in the first five Grail Wars in modern history, a series of conflicts known as the Original Wars, or Heaven's Feel." He paused briefly; eyeing Ervin as the rapt blonde did he best to digest the information. "But," Archer then continued, "the wars have gotten out of hand since then. The next three wars went unnoticed, and by the time a handful in the Association caught on, the nature of the wars have become so volatile, that the Association couldn't keep up. As it stands today, the Association does nothing more than watch the conflict from the shadows, desperately trying to glean knowledge from it. They no longer regulate against things like the killing of people who are uninvolved, or any other crime. They simply cannot."

"So there were many wars? Not just one?"

"There has been a total fifteen past wars, stretched over three hundred years."

"You have been fighting this war for three hundred years?" Ervin was catching on relatively quickly, but still struggled somewhat to understand the big picture.

"I have fought in the fifth war, the ninth, and the tenth."

"Hmm." Ervin furrowed his eyebrows as Archer eyed him expressionlessly.

"Well, there IS something I seek from the Root." Ervin admitted. "But winning a killing contest is not for me."

"If you so wish, I can kill only other servants, and spare their masters."

"That doesn't solve the problem. Servants are people too, aren't they?"

Archer's icy gaze warmed slightly, as did his voice. "For your own good, it is better to treat us only as weapons."

"Plus," Archer straightened his voice again. "You've already seen the servant Berserker first hand. No matter how human she looks, unless you put her down, more people will die. You could say the same for her master. If you let me kill them both, you will end up saving more lives than letting them kill you."

"Is there any other way?" Ervin was slowly caving in to Archer's argument.

"Of course, if you simply want to give up, there is an easy way. You see the three command seals on your hand? Each one lets you make one absolute command that I must obey. All you have to do is to give me three absolute orders of any kind, and then our contract is over. Then you will no longer be a master."

Ervin shook his head. "No, that won't do."

"That's what I thought." Archer vacated the couch and stood up. "Get some rest while you can, while I patrol the perimeter."

"Alright." Ervin did feel quite tired. He wouldn't mind some sleep.

"Oh, and one more thing to remember." Archer mentioned as he left the room. "Don't join the fray when servants are fighting. It's a stupid way to get yourself killed."

Ervin was about to argue, but Archer was no longer there. Sighing and closing his eyes, Ervin distilled the day's events in his mind. He reflected on how easily he accepted his role in this hideous underground war. He felt ashamed that he really was just like any other mage, wanting to reach the Root for selfish reasons, and on their journey jeopardize other people's lives with disregard. His foster parents didn't have the heart to tell him the truth, but he knew enough from what he overheard when he was small - that he was fated to do something hideous and tragic. That's why I need the Root, he thought. Because I am fated to be a terrible person and I don't know how to change.

***Scene Break***

"You want me to do what?" Archer's reply was incredulous.

"I mean it. I need you teach me the finer details of swordsmanship, so I can fight by your side."

"I must inform you, master." The servant went back to his usual formal tone, but a measure of exasperation came through nevertheless. "The usual Grail War is decided in no more than a few weeks. There is little time for you to acquire new skills, especially ones that require long-term physical conditioning."

"I can't just stand and watch while you fight proxy battles for me. I can't let you bear the full weight of my every decision alone. It isn't fair to you."

"I promise to learn attentively." Ervin pressed his case. "I already know all the basics, so I hopefully won't waste too much of your time."

"Very well, master. If that is what is what you want." Archer seemed to be thinking of something else, as Ervin caught a less-than-subtle, far-away look in his dark eyes. Ervin was now even more convinced that he was doing the right thing. His servant was human, and showed all the signs of being one. By improving his fighting skills, Ervin hoped to lower the number of times he would have to degrade someone who has saved his life with murderous errands.

***Scene Break***

Ervin has been brutally bruised in two dozen places from Archer's training sword, and he was allowed a moment of respite. He could not recall the last time he was on such a wide expanse of grass that stretched to the edge of his view. Sitting on a hill even farther out than the outskirts of the old city, Archer and himself were the only living souls that were present for miles. Ervin stood up and walked a few paces towards the sunset, consisted of a few cracks of orange red seeping through the backdrop of the dark grey, clouded sky. He turned around towards Archer, facing upwind as his long, un-groomed golden hair was blown clear of his eyes.

"You said servants come from heroic spirits of the past, right?"

Archer gave a single nod, and stared emotionlessly in Ervin's direction.

"I guess the sky was still blue back in your time. How did your sunsets look like?"

When Archer didn't answer, Ervin mentally scolded himself. His stupid questions must have rubbed his servant the wrong way. He sat back down quietly, not knowing what else to say. At length, Archer simply shrugged at him.

***Scene Break***

"On paper, you're not bad." Archer told Ervin as they made their way back to town the next morning. Archer was at times a man of harsh dispositions, but Ervin could feel that the hardened warrior meant well. Parts of Ervin were still giddy that he somehow landed such a 'badass' warrior as his companion, and childishly wanted to follow his example.

"Your biggest problem," Archer continued, "is the mismatch between your techniques and your weapon. You put way too much power in the simple swinging of a relatively light arming sword. In doing so, for not much more power and not much more speed, you lose a lot of control. Arming swords boast precision and balance, and you fail to take advantage of either."

Ervin nodded as he took mental notes in his head. "So I just have to learn to use less power, right?"

"No. I have seen you fight; you don't fight with conscious techniques, but with instincts. Better to find you a different weapon, rather than a different set of instincts."

"Oh, I see..."

"Plus," Archer continued as they paced along the slum streets, "we are behind in the hunt for the Grail, so we are short on time."

"Yeah, I know," Ervin concurred, as he stopped at the base of an old mansion. "I just need to tell my sis that I'll be gone for a while."

As Archer crossed his arms and waited outside the gate, Ervin went inside to bid his sister a quick goodbye.

***Scene Break***

"What? A mage war?" Ervin's sister was in disbelief. "You can't go. It's too dangerous."

"Elise. This is my one chance to commune with the Root, and rid us our curse."

"No, Ervin. We are happy like this, and we should just live our lives."

"Do you not care for why we were abandoned at birth?" Ervin asked hotly. "Or the prophecy that it's in our blood to do something tragic?"

"Ervin." Elise looked at him with a mix of love, exasperation, resignation, and sadness. "If you ever make a mistake that you can't bear, I will bear it for you. And if I make a mistake, I'm sure you will do the same for me. Isn't that enough?"

Ervin embraced his sister. "Sorry, Elise. The way I choose to love you is to take all your faults as my own, but not let any of mine become yours."

"You're so unfair." Elise hugged him back and held him, then gently pushed him away. "Promise me not to get hurt."

"I promise." Ervin nodded. "I will return to you no matter what."

With that, Ervin walked out, turning around at Elise again before closing the door behind him. He returned to his waiting servant, but was not in the mood to apologize for having kept him so long.

"Alright then, on with the Grail. What do you think we should do?"

"The most direct method is to seek out other servants, and destroy them."

"Hmm." Ervin felt rather reserved, having instead the inclination to try some less direct methods to minimize bloodshed.

Archer read his master's mind. "But of course, we could always gather intelligence while keeping a low profile and wait for our chance to strike. But understand that I am not a specialist in coming up with overarching, grand strategies."

"I see..." Ervin tried to sound like he was weighing the pros and cons, but secretly clung to his original idea of coming up with a roundabout approach.

"And never forget." Archer continued, being perceptive as was. "Suspending your involvement in the war might give less scrupulous masters free reign to destroy innocents."

"Right..." Ervin was reluctant to concede, and tried to downplay the issue. "We have to worry about Berserker's master."

"Not just Berserker." Archer allowed his master no mental refuge. "Over the years, the temptation for any master to shed blood on whim has grown dramatically." Seeing that he has caught Ervin's full attention, Archer continued to elaborate. "There are two ways to replenish a servant's energy. One way is for the master to supply the energy himself, but owing to the lack of academies in your time, this has become a lost art to magi uninvolved with the Association. The second way..."

"...is to kill people and drain their lifeblood?" Ervin offered, hoping that he had guessed wrong.

He didn't. "Yes. But more precisely," Archer continued grimly, "servants will devour the lifeblood of the humans they kill." Seeing Ervin visibly squirm, Archer remarked bitterly. "The Root, in its infinite mystery, have meant for us to be this way."

"So you will... devour people?" Ervin's tone was one of horrified resignation.

Archer suddenly stiffened, and started to speak in a manner akin to some sacred recitation. "It is against my wish to harm innocents. I will do so for expediency if my master orders, but I will take away a command seal each time."

Ervin was glad that Archer seemed averse to his suggestion, and breathed a sigh of relief. "I'm glad that that's not something we'll ever have to worry about."

***Scene Break***

Ervin and Archer were now in the new city centre along Commercial Street. Between patches of busy shops were neighbourhoods for the fortunate and well-to-do, with dwellings that seldom crumbled. Still, Archer seemed unimpressed as Ervin let him down the street. "The libraries have proven useless." Archer declared flat out. "We have not even found a single authentic book on magecraft, much less one regarding theories of Grails."

"Uh, oi..." Ervin rolled up his green eyes and he tried to think of something - something to prove that his 'master plan' held water. Hours ago, he pointed out to Archer that if one preferred direct methods, the most direct course to winning is to ignore other contestants and aim directly for the Grail. Archer was appalled at the idea of touching the Grail prematurely, claiming that it will somehow lead to disaster, but Ervin made his thesis that controlling the Grail will give them an initiative advantage. Although his servant let him have the final say, Archer has been unfairly judgemental about the plan's apparent shortcomings. Still that was fine; it was nice of him to care.

"There's at least one more library we can look into." Exactly one more, in fact, but Ervin was trying to sound reassuring. "The Idea Store is an old, old library near the eastern outskirts, an obscure place that doesn't receive a lot of people. Maybe obscure topics like magecraft can be found there."

"Whatever you say, Master." Archer remarked indifferently as he followed Ervin into the eastbound shuttle.

***Scene Break***

"Aha, found it!" Ervin pointed to a moderately sized shelf that boasted titles such as 'Basics on the Magical Elements,' 'Lost Rituals,' and 'Mana Versus Od: Schools of Thought.' Looking through the shelf and finding the title 'Keys to the Root,' Ervin waved the book triumphantly at his servant. When Archer nodded but otherwise gave little reaction, Ervin figured that the tough guy didn't care to be proven wrong. So he simply took his book, sat down at a decrepit desk near the cracked window, and began reading. Within the minute he looked up to find Archer sitting now across from him, his face buried in another book. Curious, Ervin slowly unseated himself and stretched his torso flat across the table, until he could see the title of his servant's book - 'The Blood of Heroes.'

Archer looked up from behind the hardcover and shot Ervin a look that made him wither all the way back down to his seat. For a second Ervin was under Archer's fixed gaze, making him wave and smile nervously. Then, without expressions or words, the servant returned his eyes to his book, as if nothing has happened.

After several hours of research in the library, Ervin and Archer went back to their hideout in the slums to rest for the night and discuss their findings. Ervin seemed mildly disturbed by what he has read, and offered to be the first to get his knowledge off of his chest.

"The author of my book wrote that in order to reach the Root, you must call out to it with a fitting sacrifice. This sacrifice can be objects, lives, or events, but must be something that disrupts the awareness of the collective human unconscious. That disruption will catch the Root's attention, and it will respond."

"I noted the name of your author." Archer told Ervin. "The same author wrote in the book that I have read, that one of the most effective types of sacrifices is the popular monuments associated with the greatest of heroes and villains known to man."

"Hmm." Ervin's verdant eyes twinkled with interest. "You're a hero yourself, right? So if we found one of your statues and burned it, we'll reach the Root?"

Oh snap. Ervin wanted to slap himself. What a stupidly offensive thing to say, telling a heroic spirit that you will defile his statue. It was too late to take it back though, and Ervin braced for repercussions. But Archer simply scoffed, and waved it off. "I am not a real heroic spirit. I am just a Counter Guardian - an unknown spirit kept by the Throne of Heroes for its own purposes. As such, I have absolutely no fame for you to sacrifice, nor any statues for you to burn."

Ouch. Now he just made the big guy admit he was never famous. Ervin felt even more apologetic than before. "Uh, I'm really sorry, I tend to say stupid things..."

"Don't mind." Archer wore a crooked grin, which actually made Ervin feel even more guilty. Then it occurred to him that Archer might be doing this on purpose, making him feel guilty and watching him squirm. Ervin simply swallowed and nodded at his servant. Quite a sadistic man.

"Anyhow," Archer straightened his face. "the author's theory is not as far-fetched as it sounds. That author hinted to the existence of servants and Grail Wars, which means he is at the very least a member of the Association."

"And that lends him a measure of credibility." Ervin invited Archer to continue by stating the obvious.

"His argument was that, since the Throne of Heroes resides in the Root, the Root can feel disturbances in the heroic spirits. A heroic spirit's very essence is fed by the attention that it receives from the human world. If that flow of attention is completely severed, the spirit changes from a famous hero to a simple guardian. The Root will feel this change, and will be roused towards the space and time where this change has occurred. That will then cause a path to the Root to open."

"I see." Ervin felt like his head has just been crammed.

***Chapter End***

Author's Note:

It's been seventeen chapters in, and I was happy to have received my first set of criticisms for this pilot project today, and as appreciation I'll post my formal answers here. Amongst them there have been some fair complaints of Archer being out-of-character, and that's pretty serious.

It took me time to get into the groove of character building, and as such I will go back and revise my earlier chapters as needed. However there are legit reasons for the more deliberate tweaks that I've decided to make to Counter Guardian Emyia.

First of all, without really spoiling anything, this isn't the Archer from the supposed Ilya route, and his appearance leans more towards that of the original Shirou. (A hint at his maturity level, too.) Thus of course one might expect variations in demeanour.

Secondly, in canon works we don't see too-too many depictions of how Archer interacts with Toshaka behind the scenes, except during UBW where Archer is depicted as somebody who is near his wits' end. It's hard to dictate how a serious Archer would interact with a master against who he has no reason to be bitter about. He is rightfully sarcastic against Bathory in chapter 9, but the reason why you don't see much of that attitude is because most of Archer's lines are with Ervin, and the two are pretty close.

Thirdly, the canon UBW route itself contains deviations in depicting Archer's personality, so one can hardly ask him to be kept 'exactly' the same.

Fourthly what I really strive to bring out here is his combat expertise and his professional attitude, plus his slightly grim and harsh outlook. I don't think the overlap of his different vibes between Fate, UBW, HF, and Ataraxia goes much more beyond that.

On a side note, as for the concern that Ervin is a wimp, an existing example of that would be the first impression of Shirou himself when he first started out. True, his popularity didn't come too high in the superhero/moe-obsessed fan votes, but nevertheless if one is shooting for depth then characters like these could exist and could be worth depicting. Not every hero needs to instantly appear as a blatant superman.

In any case, I appreciate the complaints as it helps me write better. Keep them generously coming. Thanks.


	3. Campaign:  First Raid

For the past few days, Heinz has been rummaging through the ruins beyond the East End, scavenging what seemed to be random refuse from the ruins of long-fallen buildings and junkyards. With Aria, they have set up camp in an abandoned home beyond the city fringe, where the broken asphalt began to give way to grass. By wetting a good amount of scavenged paper in the nearby creek, wringing them into logs, and letting them dry, Heinz made a modest reserve of cheap firewood, which Aria ignited with magic to start a small fire outside of their shelter. Water from the creek, boiled in a scavenged pot, passed as potable water, while food consisted of wild vegetation and a single unlucky deer.

Aria herself has spent most of her time transmuting bits of rubble and stone she gathered in the streets into sulphur and potash, as Heinz requested. Their hour-long channelling time aside, the transmutation spells were not too difficult for Aria, who was at one point well-practiced in transmuting anything that could set murderous gangsters on fire. Still, she has been too sick to do serious magecraft for several years now, and she savoured her redeemed freedom with a feeling of bittersweet gratefulness and joy.

She looked over her shoulder at Heinz as she toiled, and continued to marvel at how smart her saviour really was. It turned out that, right from the first fake fireball she has cast back in the warehouse when she first met him, he figured out that her specialty magecraft was actually alchemy, not fire. The few days' worth of casual storytelling revealed that Heinz was the last surviving child of a family of scholars, and though they were not able to use magic themselves, they were, in secret, no strangers to the art.

Even now he was busy processing the fruits of Aria's labour. Sulphur and potash were ground into gunpowder, and stuffed into a disparate collection of scavenged bottles and jars, with fuses of oil-soaked yarn poking out of their loose seals.

With Aria's transmutes, Heinz was making grenades.

***Scene Break***

"You're really serious about raiding the nobles, aren't you?" Aria asked as she helped Heinz pack the several dozen homemade grenades into a bag.

"That's the plan." Heinz nodded. "They're nothing to be afraid of. The modern concept of nobility is a joke, anyway."

"Not exactly a joke when their followers shoot you dead." Aria remarked wryly. "Sure, a 'noble' in this day and age is nothing more than a rich individual controlling a sizable armed urban gang. But isn't that already too dangerous to take lightly?"

"Mhm, you're right." Heinz agreed. "But," he continued, "they're still far from unbeatable. Plus, the incentive to upgrade my equipment is just too high."

"Heinz, don't be too hard on yourself." Aria stood beside her companion and put a hand around his shoulders. "I would never demand you to match other servants in brute power. We'll get around it somehow. You don't have to do this..."

Heinz turned around with a resolute look in his eyes. "But yes, I do. Unlike most other servants in the Grail War, I am not some famous hero from the past with powerful magical skills. If we want to win the war, I need the means to protect you in the only way I know how."

"But..." Aria struggled to find words, being well aware that they badly needed to strengthen themselves, but felt guilty that her insufficient strength was pushing Heinz to take high risks to increase that of his own.

"Think about the war plan, master." Heinz put on a seriously devoted face, one that Aria found difficult to resist. "These cheap grenades will barely scratch an average servant, so we can't fight the Grail War with just these. However, we CAN use these cheap grenades to fight for guns, and we can then use those guns to secure other assets, and so on. With each cycle of production, battle, and expansion, we can hope to become strong enough to match what competitors we come across."

"You crazy boy." Even for such a crazy idea, Heinz talked it up in a way that made so much sense, that it all sounded totally doable. Aria tried not to encourage him by sounding too affectionate, but failed to cover up her tone. "It would really suck if you got hurt just because of me, you know?"

"But I'm your servant. That's what I signed up for."

"That's just too hard on you." Aria protested.

"Don't feel guilty." Heinz smiled. "You're in it with me." With that, he gently swung the bag over his shoulders, put his arms through the straps, and fastened the buckle tightly around his waist. Standing in front of Aria, he straightened his back and held up his chin, as if he was some noble's bodyguard standing attention to his boss.

Except he wore the silly boy's grin on his face, that did much to diffuse the tension Aria was feeling.

"On your orders, master," he said, "and we'll move out."

***Scene Break***

_The street lamps were the only lights of the night. The black sky was in a foul mood, and completely obscured the feeble glow of stars. As she marched, Aria's movements radiated a sinewy grace. She had open eyes and open ears. But most importantly, she kept an open mind._

_This is my master. She is the hawk-eyed gunner. I am her armour, and I am her gun. She has a lot to learn, but her lessons have already started. In this war, we start penniless and outgunned, fresh off from the brink of death. We could afford no training. The first battle is her tutorial, and it only gets harder from here._

_When you are imparting an entire body of knowledge outside a classroom, there is no straight and hard rule on where to begin. To an audience of great capacity, who is at once your student and your teacher, you turn every opportunity into a lesson, so that instead of listening and remembering, she will breathe it all in._

_"Ideally, when you are marching in a war, you should travel light, with minimal equipment."_

_"But just a dozen home-made bombs? It's good for killing about two guards." It was not an ignorant statement. For a novice, my master had good sense._

_"What you can fight with is not limited to what you start with in your bag. The land is your warehouse. The world is your forge. Play the right cards with just a few clips, and you can create unlimited weapons."_

_"Ja, I kreate unlimited veaponz." Aria mocked me in a sarcastic voice. "Too deep, you nerd." She kept up the light-footed brisk walk along my side, never once losing pace. "But really, Heinz, I know one problem with your big plan of trading small guns for big guns."_

_Yeah. That's what I like about you, Aria. You've got a good heart. Go on and say it. Expose my delusions._

_"Conservation of magic. Power in equals power out. You can't balance a small gun and a big gun, unless the small gun is weighted along with something else."_

_A good heart and a smart brain. Go on. Continue._

_"It's weighted with the blood of the people we're going to kill. The bigger the gun, the bloodier."_

_I had a dozen off-the-shelf replies to that, and it eased my conscience by about half a percent that I wasn't the first to invent any of them. Oh they were bad people. Oh a few die so many can live more. Oh it's either them or us. Oh we are better than them. Oh the Root told us to do it. And so on. Easy answers that will troll the pacifist for years as they actually put honest effort to disprove dishonest claims that were made with no effort and no conscience._

_I've long lost the heart to poop anyone with these answers. Especially Aria. Especially Aria when she looked at me in the eyes, ready to take stock in almost anything I say._

_"You're right. And I'm doing it simply because I think that it will give me something I want. Even if the Grail ends up making some kind of better world, nothing I do can really be justified. I - "_

_We stopped our march some time ago. Her cold, soft fingers rested firmly on my shoulders. Her barely-moving lips loosened words that sounded about a hair's length away in the dead of the night._

_"Don't talk like you're alone. I'm in it with you."_

***Scene Break***

If there was truly a difference between being dead and being lifeless, Aria and Heinz's path itself through the dark streets should have amply illustrated it. A street that felt lifeless would have given off the certainty that there was nothing there beside the stealthy clattering of one's own boots. But on a street that felt DEAD, permeating the distant surroundings where nothing could be seen or heard, there always was the looming illusion of SOMETHING, as if the deadness itself was a substantial existence that cannot be simply written off as the 'absence of life.'

Aria herself, of course, harboured no such questions. With her course set and her servant at her side, marched on ahead. Heinz's planned path did not take them through the widest streets, but meandered through the more difficult and narrow ones that weaved around the main streets to arrive at the same destination.

"It's to familiarize ourselves with our escape route." Heinz explained. "Once our raid is finished, the noble's guards will pursue us, at which point it's unwise to stick to the open streets, where we can be easily seen. Furthermore, the simpler topologies of wider areas with narrower branches make for easy blockades..."

Aria listened intently as she marched along, internalizing Heinz's in-field lectures on the art of war. At last they arrived on the perimeter of their target. It was the mansion of a noble, a leader of an armed gang, who has made this place his fortress. The estate was a house lying at the north-east corner of a good-sized yard, closed off from the outside with a wall of sandstone. All this information came as no surprise to Aria, who has been near this place before for pandering and other dealings. She has told Heinz of the guards that lurked from the mansion's balconies, and her servant has planned the encounter accordingly.

The objective was to raid the mansion's supply of guns, whether through stealing from the warehouse or looting from dead guards.

There was only one entrance to the villa, a gated opening facing south. At the beckoning of Heinz, servant and master made their way to the eastern wall.

Heinz silently gave the nod for the next step. Aria's job was to transmute the calcium compounds in the sandstone to pure potassium. The constraint was the over fifty minutes of casting time she needed to transmute a single brick, and the hourly patrols that took place that would trip the alarm. Having timed their arrival precisely after a change of guards, Aria had just enough time to cast one instance of the spell, perhaps not even. Heinz's intention was to make that single transmuted brick count.

After nearly an hour of uneasy silence, came the creaking sound of the gates and the lazy tapping of approaching footsteps. Aria wasn't finished transmuting even one brick, but a quick jab from Heinz told her that they'll make do with what they had. A single chunk of pure potassium now sat right in the south-east corner of the walls, at the height of an average man's head. Master and servant simply waited now, for their prey to arrive.

Heinz grabbed a grenade from his bag and asked Aria to light the fuse, right as two shadows emerged around the southeast corner. The servant threw the humble explosive with deadly accuracy, right onto the patch of potassium. A large explosion ensued with blinding purple fire, shrapnel of glass and metallic shards drilling cruelly into the heads of the stunned patrols. Heinz jumped on the stunned targets, breaking the neck of one with a brutal chop of the hand, and killing the other with a flying knee to the xiphoid process. In an automatic, no-moves-wasted fashion, he stripped them of their assault rifles, wore their bullet-proof vests in double layers, and slung their belts of magazines over his own shoulders, crossing them in front of his chest.

A loud yell burst from the mansion's balcony, and the other two patrolling guards emerged around the northeast corner. Heinz dropped both arrivals with a controlled spray, and made his way north along the edge of the walls. A loud canister sound popped on the inside edge of the southeast wall corner, and Heinz recognized it as a missed shot at where they stood a second ago.

"Grenade launcher," Heinz hissed, "from the balcony."

"Let's leave before all the sleeping guards wake up." Aria nudged Heinz, showing a readiness to leave. She took up the weapons from the second pair of dead guards, stripping the magazines like Heinz did albeit more slowly. Another blind grenade was launched from the balcony, landing wide but spewing shrapnel that cut their faces. Lights in the mansion were now turning on one by one, and shadows moved about behind the windows, waking up and arming themselves. An army of about twenty to thirty guards were mobilizing, and it would take perhaps no more than three minutes to assemble. Then they would come down on the intruders hard, with a decisive numerical advantage.

From his bag, Heinz took out a string of explosive vials that were chained together, and flailed the entire thing through a window, which started a fire inside. Launching the parting gift gave away their position, but it would divert many guards into putting out the fire. Now that all factors have been set, it was their cue to leave. They would have less than two minutes of head start now, in making their escape.

But the bomb toss gave away their position, and the suppressive shrapnel from the balcony rained their way. Guards were yelling now, some perhaps have almost made it out to the yard. Aria held one of her guns tightly in her hands, just vaguely familiar with the controls from her past contact with gangs. Her survival instincts kicked in now; twice she wanted to make a run past the thin bushes and onto the road in the direction they came from, but twice Heinz restrained her, held her down, and covered her face with his body, saving her eyes from the inevitable frag that followed.

The perched grenadier barked orders through his comm as he loosed another grenade. Apparently the house fire caused some confusion, but it didn't seem like something Heinz wanted to count on too much. "Man on the balcony is their leader..." He hissed. Before he could finish, another grenade exploded near them, riddling Heinz's protective vest, but missing his head due to his flawless posture.

Then, instead of finishing his thought, the servant reversed his hold and pushed his master forward. "He's out of shots! Go go go!" Still Heinz's reaction was a step faster where it actually mattered, and he ended up dragging Aria along for the first few seconds. Another grenade exploded behind their backs, and Heinz cursed under his breath, turning around to suppress the enemy grenadier with a general bullet spray.

Aria ran ahead, and was about to move through the bushes onto the streets, but she stopped in her tracks. Holding all her fleeing urges in check, she decided that she couldn't leave Heinz one step behind. This was not a strategy. It was just a counter-intuitive instinct. She was rough girl who knew the bare basics of a gun, and she was going to shoot it, for what it was worth.

Never mind the fact that the grenadier seemed to be directing the other guards. She didn't even take that into consideration. Even the thought of helping Heinz has been completely internalized into a subconscious urge, the words and expressions to that intent trashed completely to preserve concentration. The weighty tool in her hand seemed to impart a cold tranquil as she turned around, fast but awkward as she took aim. Moments before she fired, it felt as though the nerves on her fingers ended not under her nails, but ran along the entire length of the gun.

She had no idea that this was her gun's maximum range. She had no idea that her current magazine had only a few bullets left, insufficient for even a single spray. She even had no idea that the switch was on full auto, unsuited to what she was about to do.

Every gun has a trigger. You aim at what you want to shoot, and you pull it.

With what must have sounded like half a burst to the trained ear, the distant balcony fell silent.

No shots came from it again.

No organized pursuits that would catch the servant and his master.

Still, the pair took no chances with that as they made their escape.

***Scene Break***

"Well." Aria collapsed on the mattress, tired from their sortie. "Six grenades for four guns. I guess it's a steal."

Heinz sat beside the table, his voice muffled by the fist that he meditatively placed in front of his mouth. "I have to say, Aria, the biggest asset we discovered today was you."

"It was probably just luck, you know."

"No." Heinz shook his head decisively. "The chance of a regular trained guard hitting any target with the AK-280 at maximum range approaches zero."

"The...AK...what? Guns have names?"

"We are at war. Our guns are like our kids, and kids must have names." Heinz replied matter-of-factly.

"OUR kids?" Aria didn't know if Heinz intended the cold joke.

"Sorry. I-"

"It's alright." Her voice sounded a bit twisted. It always does, when she tries to pull herself together by speaking, to rid the choking, constricted feeling in her throat and jaw. Aria's mattress had the top of her head facing her servant's desk, so Heinz could not see the bittersweet expression that was somehow both a grimace and a smile.

"Heinz, it's not that I..."

"I understand, master."

Ouch. She felt the loaded undertone, something to the degree of 'as you wish, I'll widen our distance.' Of course she did not wish for anything of that sort. In her head, Aria played the potential dialogue that would ensue if she tried to explain herself.

I don't like kids.

But you care for the orphans on the street.

That's why I don't want to make more, because...

It would be a stupid conversation, and she wouldn't bother with it. Still, if she left things as they were, she wouldn't be able to fall asleep.

"Don't talk stupid, Heinz. We're far more than master and servant. At least to me."

She curved into a ball on her pillow, presenting the boy with her back. The quiet shuffling sounds of gun-cleaning continued behind her head. Click. Tick. Bump. At length Aria un-snuggled into a prone position, propped her elbows on her pillow, and faced the direction of the desk.

The big boy was looking back at her. Her smile seemed to cheer him up, and he returned a genuine grin. It was a rare case of him acting his age.

"Get some sleep." She said, before sinking her face into the pillow.

***Scene Break***

When Aria opened her eyes to the grey light of noon, Heinz was already back at the table, cleaning the guns and checking the ammunition.

"Morning." She prodded the boy.

"Hey." He nodded, absorbed in his work.

"Umm, last night you were saying how guns have names, before I interrupted you. What were you going to say?"

"Oh, just a background lesson on the different categories of guns, and the kinds of people that prefer each."

Relieved that the sensitivity from last night was long gone, Aria stood at the table for another lesson.

"Take a look at the four guns on the table." Heinz passed over the pile of reassembled weapons. "See how they don't all look the same?"

Aria nodded, and listened intently as Heinz went over the anatomy of the guns, giving short spiels on the stock, trigger, receiver, magazine, and every other detail.

"The commonly-seen types of modern guns all look very distinct." Heinz explained as he tapped each weapon didactically. "Once you get used to it, you can tell one gun from another easily. While not all guns are equally good, it's always good to know how to best use whatever you have on hand."

"Yeah, yeah, I get that." Aria picked up the pair of identically-shaped, simpler-looking guns off the table. They weighed several kilograms each, but the bony girl was strong enough to lift both without effort. "But these two guns, for example. They're the same shape but have different weights. Do they have the same names or not?"

"They do." Heinz pointed at the weapons for emphasis. "The AK-74 is a classic gun that's over a century old. Very easy gun to buy, easy to clean, easy to use. Being available off the black market for less than a hundred pounds, this is the most commonly used gun amongst small-sized gangs. As for the weight difference, it comes from a customization choice that the gangster makes when he buys the gun. Some people prefer wooden parts that respond better when the gun heats up from shooting. Others prefer synthetic parts that are lighter and easier to carry."

"Ugh." Aria felt mentally crammed, but she took everything to heart. "So these ones are called 74s." She then pointed to the robust, ponderous gun she carried with her last night "And this is called 280, right? So what's the number on that other one?" She asked, gesturing towards the fourth unnamed gun on the table, a slightly shorter, totally different-shaped weapon that had its magazine behind the trigger, contrary to the other three.

"First things first. Not all guns are named simply by numbers. And not every gun is called AK-something. 'AK' is the name of a brand for guns, just like Adidas for shoes and Porsche for cars."

"Ohhh."

"It is informative to observe which kinds of gangs use which brands of guns. Smaller gangs that operate smaller underground businesses like drugs and smuggling tend to prefer weapons manufactured in the Eastern Union, which offer a two-tier mix between risky, extreme designs and cheap, reliable alternatives. Larger cartels, especially those that invest in mining, energy, or routine armed conflicts, prefer guns made in the Western Coalition, which are overall more streamlined, better-tested, better crafted, but on average more expensive."

"What the hell, how do you know all this?" Aria rubbed her temples, and pointed to the fourth gun again. "So that one is from the Union too?"

Heinz shook his head sombrely, picked up the bullpup rifle, and handed it over to Aria with just a nod, prodding her to take it in hand and see for herself. She grabbed the gun grip in her right hand, correctly with a finger slid into trigger ring but behind the trigger. Resting the barrel in her left, she raised the weapon and felt it in her hands, feeling the familiar feeling of the gun becoming part of her arm.

"Smooth with all the grace of a natural marksman." Heinz whistled in admiration, a sound which Aria found warmly provocative. "Switch the safe to semi, and fake a shot."

Aria slid her left hand back from the barrel and over the receiver. Palming over its smooth surface, she found no switch.

"Huh?" She looked at the gun. The switch was on the other side of the receiver. She propped the gun on the floor in front of her, turned her wrist so that the left side of the gun faced down and the switching side faced up. Rubbing her left hand over the leaver, she was finally able to comfortably reach the mechanical switch. Before she changed the setting however, she paused, and stared at the gun with furrowed brows. The design felt weird. Why is the switch on the wrong side?

She figured it out after a moment's pause. "Damn, so there are righty and lefty guns. That's what this is, isn't it? A lefty's gun."

"It's more than that. Switch to semi, and you'll see."

Aria flipped the switch by a single tick. Before she could re-raise the weapon against her shoulders, the feeling of the weapon changed. It was no longer a simple case of the gun feeling like an extension of her limbs. It felt as though not only her nerves ran along the barrel, but the magic circuits in her body as well.

"Gehh..." She grunted, trying to recover from being startled. "Magic?"

"As I thought." Heinz took the gun from her hand, in light of the slight possibility that it might do his master some harm. "This gun was intended for a mage."

"Right, it's tapping into my magical circuits. But why left-handed?"

"For most fighting magi, the right hand is reserved for wielding magical artefacts, which is more important than an assault rifle. Well-trained fighting magi are often strong enough to use a normally two-handed rifle in their single left hand."

"I see. I don't use any artefacts, so I wouldn't know." Aria shrugged.

"Weapons such as this," Heinz continued, "take advantage of the mage's magical circuits to pump mana into the fired rounds, giving a minor but visible boost to the bullets' accuracy and penetration value."

"So being a mage, I guess I should learn to use this thing?"

"Not necessarily. The previous owner was likely a mage, and this weapon clearly failed him. Plus you don't fight with a magical item in your right hand anyway, so the sinistrality of the gun gives you no advantage. You have to decide for yourself whether the little bit of extra power behind the gun makes it worth learning."

"Hmm." Aria toyed with the left-handed gun, holding it in different positions and aiming ahead, in search of a way to make the looted item useful.

"In any case, one thing is almost certain. It's virtually impossible for a common thug to obtain magical weapons off the black market, so the person in charge of the gang is likely a mage."


	4. Fate: Blood Flowers I

Clouds of smoke and blood congealed and dispersed in the backdrop of a crimson sky. An ensemble of warriors, soldiers, and even magi, surrounded a giant ziggurat that housed an ever-growing swirl of sinister black. Trapped at the top, guarding the expanding darkness, stood two figures. The one who appeared to be in charge was a robed man of medium build, his head shaved bald, revealing one red glowing chevron above two others that have gone dim. Against the sea of hostiles that were closing in, the bald man raised a finger in a gesture of command.

Ervin's eyes settled on the other figure as he turned around to face his robed master, staring at the bald mage with a look of rage and reproach.

Archer.

Ervin was having the nightmare of his life. He knew this had to be a dream, but he was utterly unable to wake himself, unable to turn away, unable to do anything but watch.

Archer's eyes were filled with horrified anger, his mouth open in an expression that almost looked like panic. As he raised his sword-wielding hands against the one who was doubtlessly his own master, the last glowing chevron on the mage's bald head flashed a haunting red. For a split second, the gaunt, orange-haired swordsman froze.

And then, he turned on the advancing crowd.

The mage in the lead was decapitated as he was channelling a spell. As Archer swung his next flurry of blades, a glowing figure of heroic presence rose to meet him. An armoured figure wearing a crown, he swung a regal longsword with gold plated hilt and silver engravings. As Ervin watched the scene unfold, the battle din of a once-silent dream suddenly reached his ears. The king's sword roared with the sound of a lion with every swing, while Archer's twin black-and-white swords, Kanshou and Byakuya, as he called them, struck silently with deadly precision. The king forced Archer back a dozen steps with his relentless strikes, and cheers of hope rang out from the crowd that did not seem eager to join the fray. But even before the wave of voices died down, the battle took a drastic turn. The king, in his proud, grand attacks, has left himself open during an overhead swing. Immediately, at a speed that was almost impossible to see, Kanshou and Byakuya vanished into thin air, as an exact copy of the king's sword appeared in Archer's right hand. With an unreal burst of speed, Archer's attacked the exposed king with what must have been over a dozen strikes, as the counterfeit weapon powered up with a blinding glow before shattering into countless pieces. The king fell limp, vanishing in a swirl of dust even before his body hit the ground.

More of the rabble attacked. Some had guns and fired liberally, while other magi desperately tried to channel their spells. A few more seemingly extraordinary figures, likely other servants, assumed defensive stances around what must have been their masters, wary of the tragic Archer who has been forcefully ordered to slay every soul on site. Those without servants quickly fell. They numbered almost in the hundreds, indistinguishable now in a pile of blood and diced flesh.

Archer stood still, his red robes slowly turning brown as the splashes of blood congealed. Eyeing the remaining servants and masters seemingly without emotion, he issued a cold taunt.

"If you stand still, you will all die."

***Scene Break***

Ervin woke up with a fit, clutching the air madly as he sought something to hold on. His hands found something solid, and he grabbed it viciously as he tried to get a hold of himself. Then he saw that he was grabbing Archer's outstretched arm. Ervin recoiled in horror as he involuntarily looked up at Archer's face.

Ervin screamed.

The orange-haired swordsman screwed his eyes shut, sighing heavily as he turned away.

***Scene Break***

Releasing his hug on the grime-encrusted toilet at the back room of the abandoned shack, Ervin eventually collected himself after there was nothing left to vomit. He wanted to avoid going back to the living room, reluctant to face his servant. Though he soon mustered the nerves to come out despite himself, a lump formed in his throat when he found Archer looking at him, as if the servant has been staring at the bathroom door the whole time. But it was only a second before Archer lowered his head, and turned away again. Such a response only proved that Ervin's dream had been real somehow, and that Archer fully knew what he had seen. Ervin now felt that a wall suddenly stood between them, a barrier that he did not know how, or whether, to breach.

It was Archer who broke it down. "Whatever it was that you saw, you will probably see worse. The Dream Cycle is an inevitable process, where the master sees glimpses of the servant's past. It is a good thing for you to be wary of your own servant, for in the event that he turns on you you'll be better prepared to fight for your life."

Ervin simply stood there for a while as Archer spoke no more and looked outside the window. After struggling to face his own fears, Ervin walked forward in light steps to the spot on the floor near the door, where his servant sat. Despite his hesitations, Ervin decided to get his words off his chest. "Let me be honest." He explained. "Me being weary of you is just a kind of denial. What I really fear is the me who is commanding you. I fear the prospect of one day losing control of myself, and commanding you to do heinous things..." Ervin slammed his first on the wall. "Damn it. I know full well that you had no choice. You're a naturally good chap who can only act as good as the wanker that's using you. That's why I'm asking you to help me, to keep my head screwed on right."

"You're asking the wrong man for moral guidance." Archer cut him off. "I'm a habitual killer who can only be kept in check by a sane master. The pressure is on you and you'd better own up."

"That's a lie and you know it! I saw the look in your eyes. You didn't want to kill. I saw the flashy sigils on the baldie's head. Quit fooling yourself." Was Ervin owning up to his responsibility saying that it was the master's fault? Or was he placing the responsibility on Archer to guide him, by labeling the servant as a man who knew the right thing? Ervin himself was aware of the contradiction. It hurt his head, and he didn't know the answer.

"You saw the Tenth War?" Archer looked up at Ervin. "A good start," he remarked bitterly. "Even if you can still honestly harbour illusions about my character after seeing something such as that, there's plenty worse for you soon enough that'll change your mind."

"No matter." Ervin once again found his stubborn streak. "Here's the deal then, not from master to servant, but friend to friend. If I ever turn bad, you put me down. And I'll do the same for you. Are we good with that?"

"Yeah... you're beyond help." Despite his sarcasm, Archer gave a firm nod, one that Ervin knew that he could trust.

"Until then, partners?" Ervin stretched out his hand.

"Hmph." Archer looked at Ervin in the eyes, and gave his hands a firm shake.

***Scene Break***

Ervin's muscles tensed in a jolt when a shrill scream pierced the dull night. When then screams persisted in a rising background of indistinct barking speech and crude laughter, Ervin decided to go out to have a look. With Archer closely behind, Ervin looked up and down the desolate streets as he tried to pinpoint the origin of the ongoing, unsettling sounds "This way." Archer was much quicker in judging the direction that spawned the noise. They found the alley was just a block away, two broken buildings down from Ervin and Archer's hideout. Ervin burst in outrage at what he saw. A gang of ruffians, armed with baseball bats, guns, and knives, were having their ways with a young woman, whose shirt has been already torn to shreds. Another scream from the tied, ravaged girl focused Ervin's full attention on just what they were doing.

They were branding her shoulder repeatedly with a hot iron.

"HEY!" Ervin drew his ornate pistol from his trench coat, enhanced the rounds with mana, and pumped shots into the rabble. A few gangsters fell, and others fired back. Their shots bounced violently off the blades of a freshly traced Byakuya, as Archer stepped in front of his master protectively. Dismissing the twin swords as quickly as they have come, he uttered the words "trace, on," as an elegantly simple, master crafted bow materialized before him. In one fluid motion he traced three simple arrows and launched them ahead, dropping three more thugs where they stood. Those remaining, five more in all, charged ahead with raised clubs and knives. Ervin drew his sword and met them, disarming and slaying the fool running ahead in a single uppercut. But then the other four were on him. Two stabs, one in the shoulder and the other in the rib, landed deeply, splashing gouts of blood onto his blue-and-white coat. That was as far as the ruffians got, before Archer repositioned himself for a clear shot through each of their heads.

Ervin made his way to the girl on the ground, who was in shock and was wracked with pain. Lost in his concern, Ervin did not immediately see that her wounds were healing right before his eyes. Nor did he take note of the crushed and trampled bouquet of wild flowers, leaves, petals and all, spread over a faintly glowing rune circle on the ground that was a metre across. "Are you alright?" As Ervin tried to kneel down beside the girl, the pain of his injuries caught up to him. As he tried to stretch himself, to test the threshold of his pain and defy his wounds, his blood dripped all over the ground. Much of Ervin's blood-spill splashed on the wilting petals lying in the runic circle, no doubt the reagents for some ritual. But Ervin took no notice.

The girl seemed to have composed herself. She had a plain face, a soft angular chin, and warm black eyes. Her dark hair was a tangled mess hanging down to her shoulders, glowing subtly in deep purple in the dimly lit corner. Ervin inwardly knew that once again, he has fallen for a stranger at the drop of a hat. He felt blood rushing to his face, and the pain that was just jabbing at him a second ago was gone. Then he finally realized that the pain was ACTUALLY gone, as in the effect wasn't just in his head. When the girl passed her hands over his wounds, the pain stopped, the bleeding halted, and the cuts gradually healed. The girl was a mage!

"Oh. Uh, wow... thanks." Ervin let out a slightly bashful laugh. "Are you okay?" He asked the girl a second time.

The girl's face suddenly turned cold. "Get away from me, boy."

Ervin froze for a second before he drew a few steps back, respecting her wishes yet hoping for her to retract them. But when she saw that he wasn't going to turn around and leave, she turned instead to Archer, and pleaded in the frantic undertone that has crept into her voice. "Please, just leave! Take the boy and go!" But Archer was already occupied. Two arrows, whipping through the air with the sound of ghastly screams, deflected loudly on the blades of Kanshou and Byakuya before they could find their way to Ervin and the girl beside him. Ervin caught sight of the unknown ambushers, two figures standing on the roof of a small dwelling at the end of the alley. The smaller, normally-dressed figure in the front had his arms casually crossed, seemingly observing the confrontation at leisure, while the taller figure in the back, a bowman in an ornate, outlandish light plate with a large lance tied to his back, loaded a dozen more arrows and fired them. Archer easily deflected the howling missiles, but while the red-suited swordsman was on the defensive, the bowman vaulted from the roof and charged down the length of the alley with his lance in hand. Almost simultaneously Archer dismissed his yin-yang twin blades, and held his hands in an archery posture. "Trace, ON," he uttered, projecting a sword, warping it into an arrow, projected the bow, and fired the weapon, all in one swift motion. The opposing figure held his lance in front of him and made no effort to change his course, knocking the arrow-sword wide just as it came within an inch of his face.

"Unthinkable..." Ervin's attention shifted back to the girl, who gaped at the duel with unbelieving eyes. "To see the Noble Phantasm Hrunting fired from the end of a bow, and then witness it parried without the use of magic..." She certainly seemed knowledgeable, being one who clearly understood the concept of a 'Noble Phantasm' - legendary weapons that a hero wielded in life, weapons that the hero continues to use even when he or she has become a heroic spirit. Despite being a mage, Ervin himself did not know this term until Archer told him. But here, not only did this girl seem to understand the phrase; she moreover knew the name of a sword that Ervin himself couldn't name. Ervin was about to ask her just how much she knew, when his question was cut short. As the warrior in the light plate charged towards a stance-ready Archer who has re-traced his weapons, the aggressor veered left to the side in a gambit that left his own right flank wide open. Archer reacted immediately and cut a deep wound into the unnamed warrior's shoulder and narrowly missing his neck, but he continued his course, heading directly for Ervin and the sitting girl. Everything was happening too fast for Ervin to properly react. The only thing he managed to do was to place himself protectively in front of purple-haired girl, as the lance was thrust towards his chest.

"RHO AIAS!"

At Archer's command, a magical bulwark appeared before Ervin, flatly repulsing the charging warrior. A many-layered crimson shield, projecting cascading quartets of petal-shaped barriers, the magical contraption blunted the assault so hard that the charging figure staggered, and almost fell on his back. But he regained his foot so fast that by the time Archer was going to exploit his opening; he parried both Kanshou and Byakuya aside with a single rotary motion of his lance. Ervin had no doubts now that this new character had to be another servant. The light-plated warrior was so unbelievably skilled, that when he performed his fiercest jabs and thrusts, he forced even Archer onto the defensive. Despite his lance being a somewhat cumbersome looking weapon, the outlandish warrior was surprisingly agile with it. Applying what combat knowledge that Archer has taught him, Ervin judged that Archer had two options. One was to get within the minimal range of the lance with his twin swords, and the other was to widen the distance completely to fire a projected blade at range. Past that, Ervin couldn't follow the specific movements enough to glean out anything more than a general flow.

Suddenly the lance-wielding warrior faked a thrust and leapt back a considerable distance, a feat that labelled him as a servant without a doubt. With several dozen paces of free room, the hostile servant brought his bow to bear once more, conjured a handful of arrows and launched them all at once. The arrows made a savage howling sound as they closed in, aiming for Ervin but catching Archer standing in the way, forcing the red-suited swordsman to make a tactical choice.

Before Archer could do so, something lunged at Ervin from the side and tackled him to the ground. Ervin gave an involuntary yelp of surprise, and found himself looking into the contorted face of the purple-haired girl. Her hands rushed down on Ervin's neck to strangle him, and she brought her face so low that Ervin could feel her heavy, panting breaths. Tears streaked down from her open eyes, and when they fell on Ervin's strangulated face, they felt icy cold. Ervin struggled with his arms and tried to push her body away, giving no note to the contours of her chest under his pushing hands. In his panic he heard the words from her mouth, but his head has long stopped interpreting meanings as it diverted all of his woefully inadequate energies to simply stay alive.

Panting...

"I'm sorry..."

Panting...

Ervin could not understand.

"I'm so sor..."

I DON'T WANT TO DIE, Ervin's mind yelled out silently.

"I'm-"

Then came the wet, plopping sound of a vicious stab. Archer has skewered the girl with a mundane longsword, and booted her violently aside. She hit the alley walls with a soft thud, and continued to twitch and snarl. As he was picked up like a log and evacuated out of the narrow alleyway into the open streets, Ervin was too shaken to realize the price Archer has paid for being distracted by his master behind him. In turning around to help Ervin, Archer has turned his back on the incoming arrows. Most did glance off his breastplate, but one of them pierced him through the back of his arm, cutting into the swordsman's biceps and hitting the bone.

Archer didn't get far. Another arrow found its way to his other arm, and he was forced to turn around and parry the incoming missiles, lest one of them would pierce his master. Setting a shocked Ervin down on the other side of the street and standing in front him, Archer parried a flurry of screaming hail. Then, suddenly dismissing his twin swords, Archer stood stiff and unflinching as arrows now found their ways to his unprotected shoulders and legs. Swiftly and steadily, as though he has suffered no injuries, as though his wounds only served to increase his precision and resolve, a bow formed in his left hand as his traced an ancient Frankish sword in his right, and pulled it back upon a taut bowstring. The sword's golden hilt glowed with the forgotten relics hidden within, waking and burning, brighter and brighter, until the entire sword was consumed in an inviolable light. Then, to maximize his focus, to ensure that everything from the crafting of the blade to the launching of the arrow would be flawless, he called on the sword's name.

"DURENDAL!"

The physical being of the sword shattered, iron and gold alike peeling away in a torrent of flameless cinders, shed behind by the lethal lance of light that shot forward from the bow.

Ervin has just witnessed a Broken Phantasm in action - a Noble Phantasm that has been sacrificed, overcharged with magic to the point of breaking, to unleash a single attack of devastating proportions. Only as the enactment of Archer's magical jargon unfolded in front of his eyes, did Ervin begin to understand the nature of a servant's weapons and abilities. He remembered Archer saying that a normal servant won't use this technique, because it would break his or her weapon for the rest of the tournament. After this live demo he understood better what Archer has meant when he talked about his strengths and weaknesses as a servant. Unlike other servants, Archer had no set weapon; his unique ability allows him to create cheap duplicates of the weapons of other legendary heroes at will. To make up for the fact that copies can't be quite as strong as an original, Archer can afford to overcharge and sacrifice his weapons liberally. If only constantly creating weapons didn't strain him so much; or if only he had the big energy pool that he said he did not have. Then Archer would be too powerful and win every Grail War.

Ervin would have been more impressed if he didn't have that poor skewered girl on his mind. What the hell was the matter with her, and why did she have to die? He knew that once this whole trauma sinks in, it'll bother him for Root knows how long. Meanwhile, Archer's attack has pierced through his opponent's right leg, evidently hampering movement. It would have obliterated a common target utterly, but the opponent was a heroic spirit after all. He somehow was quick enough to dodge the holy arrow that was aimed for his chest; it was as though had it not been the magic within the weapon, the missile might not have landed at all. Nevertheless, this servant, likely of the Lancer class that Archer has talked about, seemed now snared and at Archer's mercy.

"HAHAHAHAHAHA!" A maniacal laughter rang down from the rooftops, coupled with sarcastic applause. Ervin and Archer turned their eyes towards the Lancer's master, who now stood above the building beside them. At a closer glance, the man was dressed as a 'noble' - a leader of any of the armed gangs that terrorized the city outskirts, dealing in slavery, murder, and drugs. The man's neat, expensive suit seemed surreal in light of the carnage that has just taken place beside him, and his vicious, pretentious demeanour added to the mockery that his clothes imparted upon all who were beneath his feet.

"Well done, well done. Killing my men, denying my entertainment, opposing my power. I hope you've had fun! While my servant might enjoy toying with you all a bit more, MY patience has run out."

"You call beating girls ENTERATAINTMENT?" Ervin flushed red as he bit back. "A bastard like you - the Root may trust you with a wish, but I don't!"

Archer on the other hand wasted no nonsense. Tracing a sword that looked remotely like a drill, he fired it from his bow directly at where the other master stood...a second ago.

It was damned near impossible that the opposing gangster mage was SO strong that he could dodge an attack from Archer on reflex. Ervin deduced that the only feasible explanation was that the bastard was cunning enough to have expected the attack before hand, and levitated pre-emptively to the adjacent rooftop, where he stood now.

"Y-y-YOU!" The noble's voice was nevertheless trembling, after seeing half of the building he just stood on sheared away. "Two masters and a servant in one night, I'll enjoy killing you all!"

Two masters? Did the gangster kill another already? Ervin wondered. Just how powerful was this scumbag with his Lancer servant out? Despite the questions he had, Ervin's primary, knee-jerk reaction was to brashly taunt his adversary.

"Fat chance of that, wanker! Your servant's limp! What's he going to do, huh?"

The noble gave off another nasty laugh even as he hid himself out of the way of another one of Archer's missiles. Tucked out of view behind structures and debris, he made his bombastic proclamation.

"Ha! What use are legs, when the Lord of All Between the Oceans conquers the world from horseback?"

At this the light-plated warrior raised his lance before him, anticipating his master's next order.

"RIDER!" The gangster called out, all phoney veils of his savagery stripped away. "Kill them all!"

The warrior spoke for first time, his voice cold. "As you wish, master!"

Even Ervin could feel the mana in the air being sucked towards Rider's feet, as the light-plated warrior recited a battle chant, no doubt focusing power for a Noble Phantasm of his own. Ervin unsheathed his sword and stood behind Archer, placing his faith in his servant even as the red-clad swordsman fired another fine-crafted blade, only to have it partially deflected by the gathering magic field and a coupled parry from the lance. Archer persisted, firing cheaper swords in increased quantities; a few found their marks despite Rider's dodges and parries, but the Noble Phantasm could not be interrupted by mere flesh wounds.

"...By decree from Everliving Sky, ruling from sea to sea, I call fourth..."

"Stay back, Ervin!" Archer requested, before tracing his twin swords and rushing forward. Archer seemed determined to interrupt Rider's casting, choosing melee when ranged attacks have failed. Ervin guessed that Rider's killer move must be so badass, that it was worth any effort to stymie in any way possible. Taking the hint, he drew his pistol, pumped it full of mana, and added his pot shots into the mix, ineffective though they seemed to be.

"And start with the girl!" The gangster added, crassly cutting into his servant's sacred ritual.

"...KHULAN-BATAAR!" The glowing energies pooling beneath Rider's legs burst out, blinding Ervin and halting Archer in his tracks. As the dust settled, Rider emerged at his full height.

The horse, apparently called Khulan-Bataar, was not large by any standards. Pale, lean and gaunt to the point of resembling a spectre, with gaseous blue orbs for eyes, the mount was all sinew and muscle without a shred of fat. Though it looked deceptively weak, it bore Rider's well-built frame like it carried nothing at all as it trotted a few paces forward, moving with a hauntingly nimble motion before coming to a silent, deadly stop before the purple-haired girl lying on the ground. She was still alive, twitching and rambling indistinctly. No doubt her wounds were desperately healing themselves as they did before, but Ervin did not dwell on the impossibility for a mortal mage to heal themselves from a fatal stab. Instead he was gripped by helpless panic, as Rider hoisted his spear high over the poor girl's heart, readying the blow that would certainly finish her off.

Adding to Ervin's angst, Archer seemed to be acting out of character as he raised his right hand, a message ambiguous between 'hold position' and 'ready to intervene.' Was Archer, of all people, hesitating between saving her and letting her die? Ervin wanted to order Archer to save her anyway, but five to six sentences were stuck in his throat, all struggling to come out first and none succeeding. Stuck in a gag, he watched as Rider brought the lance down. Even if Archer acted now, it would be too late...

Then came the sound of steel clashing with SOMETHING. Steel against steel? Or steel piercing flesh? Ervin couldn't tell, for it sounded like both and neither. Nor did his eyes tell him anything definite, as he beheld a swirling mass, as chaotic as the sound, darken and condense, even as Archer leapt away from deep blue nebula. For a brief second, Ervin thought the air smelled like flowers and blood. Meanwhile in the face of uncertainty, Archer took the defensive and rushed back to Ervin, wary of any more surprises that could pop out from the roadside. Ervin felt a small sense of relief at this; for at the very least, Rider's master was certainly lurking in the dark, waiting to strike. He returned his attention to the ravaged alley, intent on seeing just what has saved the purple-haired damsel from certain doom.

For all the flash he's caused, the new arrival looked about one head shorter than Archer, perhaps even shorter than Ervin himself. A closer look however, made it harder to write him off. Covered completely in a suit of blackish blue armour, seemingly of metal yet glared no light, the figure stood slightly hunched with his back towards the streets. Cascading ring plates covered his limbs, which ended in smooth and heavy sabatons and gauntlets. Two curved flaps protruded from his helm pointing upwards, their shapes a cross between horns and wings. An obsidian metallic girdle wrapped along his waist, fastening the strip-plated cuisses that hung down to the back of his knees. He was pointing his weapon directly at Rider, and as such Ervin could not see its details.

As Rider withdrew a dozen paces to study the new adversary, the armoured figure knelt down beside the purple-haired girl, who, upon regaining some of her vitality, immediately began twitching again, clawing away at her saviour's plated armour. The knight endured stoically, and spoke his first words in a voice muffled and distorted by the smooth, angular faceplate that covered all but his eyes.

"Servant Saber, awaiting your command."

As the newly arrived Saber stood up and turned around to study Ervin and Archer, Ervin was doing likewise, narrowing his eyes for a better visual assessment of the armoured knight. Even from a dozen paces away, he saw the unsettling glare of Saber's eyes. Pallid, sickly yellow orbs stared out from behind the angular faceplate, bright enough to stand out but dark enough that they gave off no glows. Another part of him that wasn't midnight blue was the row of large gems socketed around his thick girdle. One gem amongst them shone in an eerie purple, a colour mirrored by the runes on the massive zweihander in his right hand. Its blade, hilt, crossguard, pommel, were all made of the same obsidian coloured metal, and purple light bled out from the shimmering inscriptions along its flat body. As the precarious standoff dragged for what must have been the longest seconds, Archer's grip on his re-traced twin blades tightened, loosened, and shifted in agitation, a reaction that left Ervin in a great deal of uncertainty and doubt.

Plunging the runed blade deep into the asphalt, Saber turned back to the purple-haired girl, who has calmed down from her spasm, but seemed to remain delirious. The muffled voice echoed out again from the great helm. "Your orders?"

The girl muttered something before Saber slung her across his back. "Yes, my lord," he uttered, his distorted voice reverberating out from his headplate.

From behind, Rider chose this moment to attack. Loosening an arrow on approach and hoisting his lance, he trained his assault on the disoriented master on Saber's back. The missile glanced, but it seemed that the small knight, barely taller than his master and hunching over just to keep the girl from dragging on the ground, stood no chance to manoeuvre or fight back. Ervin was suddenly compelled again to take the girl's side. He straightened his sword arm and started to rush forward in a futile intervention that would not have made its way in on time, but Archer's arms shot out and grabbed him back in an iron grip. While Ervin gave a brief knee-jerk struggle against his servant, Saber made his move. Suddenly dropping his master on the ground, he turned around for an uppercut in the same motion. The execution seemed rudimentary in finesse, but the certainty of the move suggested that it was planned well in advance. The lance was knocked wide, and Rider staggered slightly before regaining his posture, and then proceeded to follow up with a dozen thrusts and jabs. Saber's movement seemed slow in comparison, each parry and dodge made just barely in time, his entire initiative spent on defense.

"We're going to just let them die?" Ervin felt repulsed by the apparent strategy, but a small part of him realized that each eliminated rival increased his chance of winning the war. He bit tongue and watched, unsure of whether he was becoming more seasoned or more selfish.

"No." Archer's voice wasn't quite in his usual brand of grim, but Ervin was too flooded with the circumstance to pick it up. "Saber is very strong. Watch, and learn."

Rider continued to press the small shape at the hooves of his steed, sandwiching Saber between his limp master and a relentless lance, giving him no possibility of escape. As the next multitudes of attacks came down, it seemed doubtful that the small overwhelmed knight would be able to dodge or parry them all. Oddly, Saber did not even try to. As Saber left himself wide open, the Rider that was so caught up in performing well-chained strikes did not even begin to suspect a trap as the murderous lance buried itself in Saber's flesh. With the long weapon now immobile, Saber made his move. Swinging his runeblade around in a wide, ponderous arc, the stroke aimed at rider's head seemed to threaten not only to decapitate him, but utterly shatter his skull as well.

"Su-lu-din!" Rider shouted, moments before certain defeat. The section of the lance that did not enter Saber's body snapped free and turned into a radiant beam of energy. As the lance of light parried the savage cut, letting loose the deafening sound of clashing weapons, a new lance-tip of raw magic formed at its end. Rider reined in Khulan-Bataar, as the horse leapt into the air, hovering at a distance. From the ground below Saber addressed Rider in a surreal voice that bore no anger or hate, its rich yet suppressed intonations leaving his words paradoxically cold.

"Your Broken Phantasm will last for at most five attacks. You would be wise to finish me before then."

Rider raised his overcharged lance to the sky, and focused beams of light burst out from its two ends, illuminating the ground and reaching the heavens. The actual spear grew brighter still, as Rider's pale horse let out a will-breaking screech from above and reared its hooves. "VERY WELL!" Rider shouted. "In salute to a true warrior, I will not hold back!"

By now Ervin's wits have completely returned, and he saw the choice that lay before him. If him and Archer continue to stand by, one of the fighting servants will die. Seeing how destructive Noble Phantasms were, this could likely mean that the girl on the ground would be caught collaterally. If Saber is really strong like Archer has said, then it could happen that Saber kills Rider while Rider's attack kills the girl. This would effectively remove two of his rivals at once, and the advantages would be huge.

But he could also order Archer to intervene, and save the girl. Surely his resourceful partner had a way. But what advantage would that bring? Ervin couldn't say. He didn't know. What justifications did he have? It wouldn't help him win the war. It would only betray his goal of obtaining the Grail. Hell, he's hesitating over someone who's a deranged strangler, who almost killed him just minutes ago. He knew that magi who participate in the Grail Wars usually have their hands stained with the blood of innocents, and she was no doubt one of these killers. What would happen if this berserker-esque master runs loose with a knight at her back? What about his principle of avoiding this war's bloodshed?

Dammit, if the choice was so obvious, why's this so hard?

Because he didn't want to see her disappear. It was a bad reason that weighed as much as the sum of all the good ones. No, in fact, it did not even count as a reason. It was just a desire, a wretched one that was impossible to sugar-coat. Not beyond 'I don't care if people die' or 'I don't care to wish myself a better person.' Behind the choice of saving her, Ervin had no real excuse better than those. He didn't know if he was bitter or glad, of how little justification actually mattered in his choice. Ervin looked at the purple-haired girl's lying figure as the servants began to charge. Would this be the last time he'll ever see her?

"KHULAN..." / "NIGHT..."

Ervin has grown used to the idea of servants calling out their attacks, with total disregard to the element of surprise. But when they did so in this case, it meant that his time to think has run out. Help her or leave her, Ervin had to decide now.


	5. Fate: Blood Flowers II

Author's note: Starting from here, every few chapters will unlock a small blurb about the stats on a particular servant. These blurbs are put into places where they won't spoil the story, and will always appear at the end of a chapter, after the 'chapter end' marker.

***Story Begins Here***

"Archer, please." Ervin steeled his voice and stood firm. "Save the girl."

Archer shot him a piercing gaze. "You don't understand the choice you've just made."

"I..." Ervin stammered. "I command you! That's an order!" But Archer already has his hands raised for tracing, as if he has anticipated Ervin's decision all long. "Then I will accompany you," Archer declared, "along whichever route you choose to take."

The distance between Rider and Saber shortened, as Rider gained momentum and Saber prepared himself for assault. Archer stared intently from the side, preparing and waiting for the precise, second-long window of opportunity right before they would clash. It would be when they are both fully committed, stuck in the motion of all-out attack; they would be most vulnerable to disruption then. Strong as they were, the two servants have neglected Archer's presence, and they were about to pay the price. "Trace, on." Archer whispered under his breath. He had but a second left before their magic attack would be fully cast. Rider's shape became an impossible glowing blur as the horse landed running for the final leg of the charge. Rising against it, Saber's dark weapon has warped into a thin, pitch-black shadow, outlined by a razor-sharp edge of haunted purple, its tip humming impatiently as it tried to contain the chaos building up within.

"KHULAN-BATAAR!" / "NIGHTMARE!"

Five blinding spears of light shot at Saber, who opposed it with an explosive splash of dark energy that barrelled forward, obliterating a cone of pavement and building concrete in its path.

By then Archer's sabotage was already underway. The time window was so short, only one such as Archer could have exploited it.

"RHO AIAS!" Archer finished his projection spell, and landed it right in between Rider and Saber. The sudden interference drastically reduced the damage done to all parties, and diverted otherwise lethal levels of energy splash away from Saber's master. Ervin was not so keen to have realized that Archer's strategy was a compromise between protecting Saber's master and furthering their own interests. The shield, tuned to favour no particular side, buckled quickly from both ends, serving only as a buffer. Had he instead maximized the delirious girl's safety by tuning the shield to favour Saber, the knight would have sustained few enough wounds to seriously threaten Ervin after Rider falls. As it was though, the explosion that levelled half the alley could not have left either combatant unscathed. But as the dust settled, it appeared as through Rider has won. His lance has completely split into five long metal splinters along its length, and even now cooled down from red to black uselessly. All except for one splinter, that has pierced Saber in the chest and burned a hole where his heart should be. A stream of crimson gushed out from his wounds and the knight bent over, struggling to stay standing using his sword as a crutch.

"Poena... est Vitae." Saber chanted in a voice that was considerably more thin and high-pitched, as he miraculously clung to life. How did he do so with his very heart no doubt crushed to a pulp? Ervin wondered in morbid fascination as a strange shield, coloured and shaped like an oversized blood droplet, materialized in Saber's left hand. With a series of sickening crunching and sloshing, his wound closed itself. Just before it did so completely, Ervin realized that it was not simply blood that poured out from his wound, but rather mostly some kind crimson glow that was just light and no substance.

"Archer..." Ervin whispered loudly. "What in the Root is he?"

"So..." Archer did not directly answer, and let out a repressed sigh that made Ervin even more uncomfortable. "Saber doesn't have a natural heart."

Before Saber attacked the now lance-less Rider, the mounted servant's master called out from the obscurity of the rubble ruins. "Rider!" The noble yelled. "Get me out of here, now!" At this, Rider jumped his horse behind a sheared four-storey building, easily avoiding Saber's retributive cleave. Pivoting around his waist with superhuman flexibility, he shot arrows behind his back to cover his retreat. Saber could not catch up as Rider disappeared, no doubt having taken his noble master with him. At this, Ervin was all too eager to breathe a sigh of relief. With Rider gone, the girl was now safe. He made his way forward to check up on her, and Archer followed closely behind to keep the potentially dangerous Saber in check. When Ervin knelt down beside the female master, she looked extremely tired and was on the verge of passing out. Nevertheless, it seemed that her lucidity has returned to her, as she tried to raise a hand towards Ervin's face.

"I'm sorry..."

Ervin's heart pumped faster, flushing his face warm with blood.

"Hey, no worries." Ervin did his best to give a reassuring smile.

The girl's voice weakened into a whisper. "Who are you?"

"I'm Ervin. Ervin Cambrian."

"Ervin..." Her eyes closed as she rolled his name on her tongue.

"And you?"

"Brigit." She said her name clearly with the last of her strength, so that Ervin could hear. Then, she passed out.

"Get a hold of yourself, master!" Archer's stern voice gripped Ervin back to a state of semi-awareness. Already the orange-haired swordsman has parried the first of Saber's forceful blows. "He's right!" Saber proclaimed, his once-cold distorted voice suddenly giving way to a hot-blooded determination. "Master yourself, Cambrian, for you are about to die!"

"Quickly, Ervin!" Archer shouted. "Into the open!" Ervin acted promptly with the cue from his servant and mentor. Most likely Saber's defend-and-counter fighting style lacked speed, and Archer would prefer to fight him in the open streets where there was more room to move. Ervin backed out of the alley, keeping his eyes mostly fixed on the fighting servants but glancing around and behind as well to ensure there was no ambush. The move pulled the pursuing Saber into the wide streets as well, and Archer moved with them, keeping himself in between the dark knight and his own master. Saber was advancing, but his sword was held in a guarding position. He simply moved against Archer, invading his space, forcing him to attack. Archer did so, testing the dark knight with Hrunting. Ervin did not know that Hrunting, being very powerful but completely useless against magic, was useful in gauging whether the enemy was more of an armsman or a caster. All that he did see was that Saber's Nightmare, the black-violet runeblade that was probably his Noble Phantasm, made nearly inaudible clashing sounds against Hrunting, despite the massive swinging force from both sides. Ervin thought it strange, and assumed it had something to do with the nature of Saber's weapon. Despite Saber's intent on killing Ervin, after a series of exchanges he made no obvious moves to bypass Archer even once.

That's what made the surprise slash all the more unexpected when it came. Seeing how Saber seemed to have slow turn speed and poor footwork, Archer tried to circle behind his back. But as soon as his line of sight was clear, Saber pointed his blade at Ervin and discharged a ray of blackish purple that glowed and ignited the air. A timely Rho Aias saved Ervin from certain death, but even as Archer finished his shield, Saber turned back around with all the agility of a seasoned fighter, dropping the disguise of the clumsy brute. Ervin was now shell-shocked, and his ability to observe and learn suffered. All that he understood was that Archer feigned a series of attacks, disengaged, grabbed him by his waist like a small boy, blue coat and all, and leapt to safety.

***Scene Break***

_My master has been handling himself rather well. Ervin was a good kid - smart, mostly stable, a bit brash at times, not without his problems but tries hard. He slept soundly on the couch now, but no doubt experiencing a world of blood and swords even as he dreamed. Normally the dream cycle only contains information of the servant's mortal life, but I supposed that the Root, in its mystery, allowed for anomalies. Better that way, actually, for Ervin would then learn how to wield weapons, not just how, or how not, to live lives._

_The world and past of his servant Archer, Emiya Shirou. Fighting, killing, wandering, he'll see it all. It would teach him a lot, and harden him for the coming days._

_Especially after what I considered his first major choice in this conflict. But this wasn't a good time to dwell on it too much. We faced other pressing questions, such as whether or not to change the location of our hideout. The abandoned house we operated from was way too close to the place where we fought Rider and Saber. Any servant would be doubly alert in an area which they've fought in, and it would make them that much more likely to discover us._

_There was a flip side to that too, should we decide to move our hideout to remain discreet. Doubtlessly I was not the only participant who realized that you can play the game of sniping masters who exposed themselves needlessly in transit. Plus, we might unknowingly move to an even more servant-infested area, since we haven't gathered that much intelligence. I was more or less a stranger to London, having only been here twice back in my lifetime, back when cities in the world still had trees and proper streets. Each time we moved, it would take time for me to acquaint myself with new surroundings, without a more familiar place to fall back to._

_If I had it my way, I'd do the thing that would be the safest and the most dangerous. I would make our whereabouts completely mobile, scouting for other servants during the day and settling in whatever good cover we'd find on our way during night time. Any enemy that tried to stalk us would have to do so with a great deal of sustained effort, and suffer a constant loss of initiative. It would also allow us to build a better strategic overview of the city._

_But that was just me. I wanted Ervin to make the final call. It's best if he gets used to making his choices, because whatever happens, it will only get more confusing for him from here._

_And also, I needed to scold him for the stupidity of knowingly allowing a dangerous master to summon a dangerous servant, and then letting his guard down against both. That was not acceptable. I'll grill him for it. Not because that he made a tactical mistake, but because I wanted him to fully reflect on just exactly what he was doing, and the weight behind his decisions. I wasn't going to tell my master to choose this way or that, but I WILL make sure that he understands his choices._

_Morning was already here, bringing with it the pale grey sky that was the sign of daylight in this age and time. Even as I napped on the floor, I virtually kept an open eye, watching out for any unlikely assassination attempts on my master. Fortunately, none came. Ervin has seen enough for one day._

***Scene Break***

Ervin dried his face with a towel as he dressed himself and went back to the main room. The hot water has broken, but he felt like he needed to clear his mind, so he has taken a cold shower and risked catching the cold. His mind still felt hammered but he made and effort to pull himself together, and looked at his servant in the eye. He saw Archer looking back at him, as if expecting something. Ervin exhaled, and sat down awkwardly on the handle of the couch.

"What's up?" Even as he tried to act casual, Ervin knew that he was about to get picked apart.

"You tell me, master." Archer's voice wasn't stern, but it made Ervin feel no better. "Are you going to compile a list of enemies that you want to be killed by?"

"Fine. I know." Ervin crumbled rather quickly. "I screwed up. It was more efficient to eliminate a rival, but I gave you an order that caused two rivals to escape. I'm sorry for telling you to do something inefficient - "

"Ervin. I am NOT talking about your ORDERS. I will follow them and that's all there is." Archer's voice was charged, but he kept it softly toned and controlled. "But I am talking about your choice. Do you understand your choice?"

"Archer. Didn't we say to target the servants only? The whole point is to minimize the killing and the bloodshed. I mean, you'd agree with that, right?"

"Minimize bloodshed?" Archer repeated the words in the tone of a question. "We've killed about ten people to rescue her at the start."

"Well - that's ... I, well ... ah... Look. Those were scum. They..."

"Still, not minimizing bloodshed, are we?"

"Oh, come on, mate."

"You CHOICE, Ervin. Do you understand it?"

"Yes!" Ervin recovered from his mental stagger and dug in his heels. "I'm sticking to my plan. Focus on finding the Grail, and minimize the loss of lives."

"Hmph." Archer's laugh sounded bland and cold. "That's the spirit."

"Now, onto the next question." The orange-haired swordsman continued. "After having a battle taking place so close to our hideout, we should decide whether or not to relocate."

"Let's see." Ervin buried his hands in his mess of blonde hair as he leaned forward to think. "We have a lot of scavenged supplies in this house that we can't easily carry around. Even if we move, best to take several trips, so it doesn't look obvious that we're moving. If the new house turns out to be a bad spot, we should be open to moving back. If fact I think we should have a network of safe houses, if possible, to broaden our options."

"That's well thought-out." Archer remarked. "Shall we scout for new places today?"

"We shall." Ervin nodded in the affirmative.

***Scene Break***

A murky warmth sedated the bright grey afternoon air as Ervin paced along the sidewalk with his bodyguard closely behind. Archer has found a suitable safe house at the town's northern edge, and they have decided to set up camp there after dark. Now they had until then to patrol the streets, so they've made their way back down south to the urban zones near the north bank of the Thames. With no immediate objectives in sight, Ervin has suggested to find a place to sit down, kill time and discuss their next steps. "Well, it's only a few hours to evening." Ervin remarked as he paused his walk to a stop. "I know a good place where we can unwind. I think it would be just the right place for you too."

"Oh?" Archer chuckled. "I trust that it's a place of good taste."

"Haha. In more ways than one." Ervin beamed with a goofy grin. "There's a tea shop directly south of here, on the north bank. They're one of the best tea and snack places in town."

"Tea and fine cooking?" Archer's eyes lit up with a far away look, his mouth slightly ajar in a thoughtful grin. "Now that, we'll HAVE to investigate."

"See, I knew you'd like it." Ervin couldn't suppress his sudden giddiness as he led his servant down the street. It was a welcome respite from the shadows of his anxiety, intent, and his path, that constantly ate at him.

***Scene Break***

Although the Kokutou Tea Shop sat on the river's north bank, the snack bar didn't make use of windows on its southern wall. Perhaps the first owner sacrificed the panoramic view to give customers a sense of cosiness and privacy. Regardless, the lack of windows didn't seem to impact the store's popularity, for when Ervin and Archer arrived, they found the shop packed, with customers sitting at every table. Quickly their eyes froze on a table less than ten paces away. A girl in a white shirt, wearing a wide-brimmed hat that obscured her face, sat facing the entrance towards their direction, habitually playing with her dark purple hair.

"Brigit!" Ervin called out in a salutary voice, his grin writing 'good-to-see-you' all over his face.

Archer however had his attention fixed on the lightly-built, diminutive youth sitting across from Brigit. With his back facing where they stood, they could only see his long, light pastel yellow hair, and his simple grey shirt and jeans. He was immersed in a game of chess with Brigit while holding a sandwich in his hand - evidently not his first judging from the massive pile of wrappers stacked on the table. Archer tensed when the young man turned around at the sound of Ervin's greeting. As the red-cloaked servant bent forward slightly in a thinly veiled fighting stance, Ervin felt a need to placate Archer. An awkward run-in with one of Brigit's friends, even if he happened to be her date, did not necessarily need to devolve into a brawl. Ervin simply smiled politely at his competitor, and nodded a 'hi' that both served to greet the pastel-haired boy, as well as hinting to Archer that there was no cause for alarm.

Archer remained tense, his eyes widening before shrinking slightly into a frown.

"Saber...?"

The pastel-haired youngster stood up with menacing deliberation, his gaze fixed not on Archer but Ervin. His sickly yellow eyes held hot hostility as he clenched his fists and bit his lips. Ervin now finally realized that the sandwich-eater standing against him was none other than Brigit's servant. His unnatural hair colour and his proximity to Brigit should have made his identity obvious in retrospect, but Ervin found it difficult to connect the image of an immature-looking, small-framed glutton with that of a murderous knight.

"Oh, look who's here." Saber's voice, now neither echoing behind a helmet nor loaded with archaic-sounding mannerisms, sounded just like that of a plain, young, unruly man who was trying to pick a fight, but unsure how to instigate one.

Before Archer could get his chance to either taunt his opponent or make the first move, a smiling waiter stepped in with a light, smooth bow. The young man was about Ervin's age, a tall oriental with long black hair dyed green at the ends, and a pair of glasses that had an elusive tint that was nigh invisible in the light of the room. "Good afternoon, please have a seat." The waiter conducted them to seats that were very close to Brigit and Saber. Where Brigit and her servant sat were the end seats of what were effectively three table-for-twos placed together, and now Ervin and Archer sat across from one another on the other end of the three-table array. Thus only one chair now divided Brigit and Ervin, and the same was true between Saber and Archer.

"Here are the menus for the tea, and these are the menus for the snacks." The waiter's enthusiasm only eased the tension superficially, and as soon as he left for the counter the pair of awkward rivals was left staring at each other once again. All except for Saber, who moodily continued his game of chess with Brigit, calling out his moves every time to remind his master that it was her turn. Brigit however could not stop herself from stealing glances over Ervin's way, all of which were caught by an Ervin who simply gave up averting his gaze altogether. Saber looked once between Ervin and Brigit, gave a sneering grunt, and kicked the chair between the two out from under the table.

Ervin thought that the gesture of kicking out a chair between Brigit and himself was akin to the act of drawing a line between them, telling him to stay away. But Ervin noted with some amusement that from a third person's point of view, the moody act can also be construed as an invitation to sit one seat closer to Brigit. So Ervin did exactly that, scooting himself over onto the kicked out chair, at once making a play on his adversary's gesture as well as getting closer to his purple apple.

"Hey." Brigit spoke her first word of the afternoon, greeting the blonde boy with a tiny wave of her hand.

"How goes the war?" It was the least awkward line Ervin could think of. Archer sighed and shook his head from a distance, but Ervin paid no attention to it.

"Sucks ass." Saber replied crassly before a mildly reserved Brigit could answer, again betraying his rather archaic first impression from the night before. "Master wasted a command seal in restraining me from killing you."

"Shh!" Brigit hissed in a loud whisper. "Don't talk about THAT in public!"

Ervin's eyes meanwhile widened, overcome by a smitten sense of sympathy, gratefulness, and guilt. "Oh... oh dear... you really shouldn't have." Then on the spur of the moment, he suggested something that made Archer balk in protest. "I'll use one on Archer as well, so he won't ever hurt you."

"That's a stupid idea. I advise against it." Archer declared flatly from the side. You can simply order me to spare her when I can. Wasting a seal is plain stupidity."

"But... Brigit here..."

"Ervin." Brigit cut him off. "You don't even know me."

"But I'm sincere about GETTING to know you. We've been chosen by the Root to walk the same frightening path, and I think we have a lot in common. In other-"

Brigit gently laid a finger over his lips, lowered her head and answered quietly. "No, Ervin, you can't."

"Q-D3, CHECKMATE!" Saber tapped the chessboard obnoxiously, clearly upset at the two master's reluctant intimacy. "Maybe you should get a room."

The waiter with glasses has meanwhile returned with a slightly-too-enthusiastic smile characteristic of someone new to this line of work. Still his amiable presence has made the new arrivals feel at home. "Can I take your order?" The waiter asked with a polite smile, pulling Ervin back down to earth. "Uh... sweetened Black Tea... large... with ice." Ervin already knew most of the selections without the menu, and it was just as well, for his attention has been elsewhere.

"One Kyusu of Gyokuro." Archer ordered, reading off a page in the menu that Ervin has always failed to understand.

"Coming right up." The waiter conducted himself with such an air of confidence, that had Ervin not been occupied with Brigit, he might have suspected him to be a manager of some kind instead of a simple clerk.

"Now calm yourselves." Archer addressed the other three at the table in a lecturing pose, narrowing his eyes, crossing his arms, and raising his right index in the air. "Just like how a swordsman must be unwavering to become one with his sword, one cannot taste the essence inside tea without a serene mind."

"That's debatable." Saber countered, in an obstinate but non-hostile tone. "I am inclined to say that to an extent, the tea takes on the flavour of the mind. When your mind is serene, the taste you get is serene. When your mind is bitter, the taste you get is bitter."

"And suppose your mind is dead?" Archer countered with a wry chuckle. "Is 'dead,' then, the flavour?"

The reply seemed to unsettle Saber a bit. "Well... I can assure you that such flavours exist. But anything beyond that should be kept off this table, for the sake of our masters."

The servants threw crooked expressions at each other. Were they building up hostility, or a grudging sense of respect? Ervin couldn't say. What occupied his mind the most was the fact that Brigit, despite herself, seemed to quietly enjoy his company, apart from an elusive sense of reservation. He chatted her up on several elementary topics of magecraft, including prana, reinforcement, and magical circuits. Brigit proved very knowledgeable, and more often than not could tell several ancient legends that illustrated each concept that was brought up. Archer quickly suppressed a light frown when the discussion went off on a tangent onto the sword Hrunting, and Brigit told the story of Beowulf and his legendary weapon right up to the most obscure details. Ervin at first thought that she has made up the finer parts of the story for dramatic effect, but when he saw Archer giving light nods of earnest acknowledgement, he became genuinely impressed at how much she knew. Ervin and Brigit conversed at length, and as small talk passed back and fourth Brigit was slowly beginning to open up.

When Saber interjected and the masters looked up, it was already evening outside. "My master has other businesses to attend to. Please excuse us, as we must take our leave."

"Let's walk your master home." Ervin offered.

"Other masters need their privacy, Ervin." Archer sent his master a firm glare before smiling politely at Saber. "It's your lucky day. The bill's on us."

"Your favour will be remembered, off the battlefield." Saber replied as he helped a somewhat pale Brigit out of her seat. It might have seemed strange to a more experienced mage that the servants should decide things for their masters, but both young masters seemed willing to defer to their servants' judgements. As Brigit made her way out of the store she suddenly seemed winded, and Ervin felt a sense of respect and thankfulness devoid of jealousy when Saber supported her with his small, un-sturdy frame.

"I'll see you later. Take care!" Ervin called out as she left.

Brigit forced a smile for him, before disappearing with Saber into the evening streets.

Ervin turned back to his servant, who was deep in thought. "Ervin." Archer asked. "Have you wondered why her hair is purple?"

"Hmm." Ervin scratched his chin. "I remember reading something about this. It's got something to do with... 'crest worms,' I think?"

"That's what I thought at first." Archer's voice was low, and his face serious. "But when I ran her through, I saw not a single worm. She almost certainly does not have them in her body."

"Well." Ervin shrugged. "Any form of crest can sometimes cause unique pigmentation in the body. I mean, your hair's orange, right?"

"I grew up with an ancient artefact implanted in my body. Even then my hair colour is not too removed from the colour of a natural red-haired person. I don't know of any other form of crest that can cause purple hair."

"Well, I'm out of ideas." Ervin shrugged, and changed the subject. "Anyhow, I think it's about time we hammer out some more details of our battle plan, like we promised."

"What are your ideas?" Archer's tone had a testing nature, loaded with didactic intent.

"Well, these are my ideas so far." Ervin lowered his voice, then paused. "Pen and paper?"

Archer glanced around the store to make sure none were watching, before tracing a piece of paper and a pen under his cloak. Taking them in hand, Ervin continued.

"I've been thinking about the ideas in the books we've read. It postulated that revered monuments, especially those bearing heavy significance on people's beliefs, can be sacrificed to become potential grails. So..."

Ervin began to draw a rough map of London on paper. Archer nodded in understanding as his master drew the river, the rough demarcation of local zones, and a handful of numbered crosses all over the sketch of the city. A legend scratched on the side labelled each marked location:

1. Tower 42

2. Tower of London

3. London Bridge

4. HMS Belfast

5. Greenwich Observatory

6. The Globe Theatre

7. St. Paul's

8. Buckingham Palace

9. Westminster

10. Princess of Wales Memorial

11. Nelson Column

12. British Museum

"These," Ervin handed the map to Archer, "cover most of the monumental places in the city. We can patrol a handful of these places each day and night, and look for clues and possibly other servants."

"A sound plan." Archer acknowledged. "I was going to suggest you to first research the monumental places in your city, but I see that you already know your historical sites well enough. You are moving things along faster than I could have hoped."

"Brilliant." Ervin beamed at his servant's praise.

Then, inadvertently their eyes turned to the large volume of sandwich wrappers that Saber has left behind.

"Now, the bill...?" Ervin looked at Archer, asking without words how he was going to fulfill his promise to pay for all the food. Archer simply stared back at him, showing ample body language that he wasn't going to trace bills to that end.

"Oh, great." Ervin sulked a bit. "Why did you have to make that offer?"

"Building your relationship with other important people in the course of a Grail War leads to better endings." Archer explained matter-of-factly, but Ervin could not shake the sense that Archer was somehow poking fun at him.

"I guess I'll have to use Elise's cash card." Ervin hung his head dejectedly. "You know, being an errand girl for the Association is hard work, and I really, really hate to binge out of her pocket..."

"Hahahaha..." Archer cracked. It was a joke at Ervin's expense after all.

As Archer fixed his mouth in an open grin and took out a large bill that he has stashed away, Ervin scowled. "You don't have a sister who spends her life taking care of you, so you wouldn't understand."

Archer's face dropped, his expression suddenly turned serious and stoic. A slight hint of grief slowly leaked from the blank stare behind his narrowed eyes.

"I had a stepsister who died saving my life."

Despite the overwhelming feeling that his servant had it coming, a part of Ervin felt apologetic. "Sorry to hear that, mate." Ervin sighed depressively in a gesture of empathy.

*******************************************************Chapter End***********************************************************

*************************************************Servant Stat Unlocked: Rider****************************************************

Class: Rider

Master: Rodman the Patient

True Name: Temujin

Sex: Male

Height/Weight: 170cm, 70kg

Alignment: Lawful Evil

***Parameters:***

Strength: C+

Magical Energy: C+

Endurance: C+

Luck: C+

Agility: B+

Noble Phantasm: B+

***Class Abilities:***

Riding: A+: can skilfully ride most mounts. At the level of A+, instead of allowing Rider to ride divine beasts, all of his parameters will increase while mounted.

***Skills:***

Charisma: B: excels in leadership, and is good at organizing a large number of allies. This confers a bonus in massed combat.

Mind's Eye: C: allows for situational awareness even in the heat of combat; resistant to external factors that disrupt tactical judgement, such as imminent danger or intense pain.

Military Tactics: C: tactical knowledge in massed combat gives him an edge in situations where a large number of combatants are involved.

***Noble Phantasms:***

Khulan-Bataar: summons his spectral mount, whose name roughly translates to 'Hero of Horses.' Rider can summon several of these steeds at once, providing a fast ride for his master and a small number of allies. The mount also allows Rider to make deadly charging attacks while equipped with his lance. Also unlocks the Parthian Shot ability, allowing him to accurately fire arrows from his bow in any direction while moving at full speed.

Rank: B

Type: Anti-Unit

Range: 50 (Charge)

Target: 50 (Charge)

Bow of Howling Arrows: when Rider led his horde to conquer the world during his lifetime, his horse archers were feared for their use of composite bows, as well as a special type of hollow-shafted arrow that made terrifying howling sounds as they sailed the air. As the brutal reputation of his army became synonymous with their tools of war, the howling arrows and the deadly accurate bows that launched them became a stuff of legend. As such, any ranged attack from Rider will naturally degrade the morale and bravery of his enemies.

Rank: C

Type: Anti-Unit

Range: 400

Target: 10

Suludin, Lance of the Steppes: in life, when he led his armies out of the steppes, one of his favourite tactics was to use lances to knock enemy knights off their horses. Under his rigid discipline, any able-bodied warrior in his horde was able to use these long weapons in surprisingly fast hit-and-run attacks that ripped apart enemy formations. As he led his army in the forefront, he himself set a fine example of using this simple weapon to its utmost. As a noble phantasm, this melee weapon deals increased damage to mounted targets, and rounds out Rider's wide set of tools that allows him to fight effectively from both up close and afar.

Rank: C

Type: Anti-Unit

Range: 2

Target: 1


	6. Campaign: Morbid Harvest I

The sky was so bright that it blinded Aria's eyes. As her pupils adjusted, she felt the biting cold seeping into her fingers and toes, assailing every inch of her skin under her thin coat. The clothing that failed to keep her warm from the start now became a body-tight fridge, with every surface and crease taking on the temperature of the outside air. As her pupils contracted to a point where she could actually open her eyes, she found that the clarity of her vision did not improve. A howling blizzard of constant falling snow made the world a smear of white. Straining her eyes in the ruined, empty streets, past the veil of frozen flakes, she found her vision further obstructed by massive chunks of torn concrete piled all around the blasted pavement.

She tried to breathe to keep her hands warm, but her toes, legs, arms and sides grew more desperate when they did not receive the same fleeting warmth. A person in a world such as this naturally sought clothing and shelter, and possibly a fire to keep warm. That same instinct drove Aria, step after painful step, down the slippery frozen streets. Each passing building looked just as foreign as the one before, with not a single living soul as far as her senses could perceive. A sense of desolation soon set in. Not only did it feel as if the world was a tessellation of the same snow and concrete; stronger yet was the feeling that she was utterly alone. She wanted to go back to where she's from, but memories of home have long become hazy as she fought back the chill of death.

Another figure emerged from the intersection in front of her. A young boy, no more than eighteen, snuck about between ruin to ruin, looking in every direction like a startled rodent. In his hands he held a shabby-looking gun, one that looked almost toy-like. His trigger hand was covered in a mitten that should have long been penetrated by the cold, and his other hand had no glove - perhaps having lost it in a hurry. Aria was glad to see a fellow human, and was wondering if she could do anything to help him, when a voice called out his name from a building diagonally across the intersection. The boy broke into a run towards the hidden garrison, with a look of genuine relief on his face that looked almost childish.

Then he was shot dead from behind, his cranial matter splattered onto the snow-covered pavement. The once-quiet structures along the street suddenly started to belch cracking sounds of gunfire that grinded the eardrums, as two opposing garrisons discovered each other's positions and opened fire.

But the gang supporting the dead headless boy did not shoot at the other garrison, but at a set of hangers that fastened a sheet of snow-covered canvases hanging off the second floor of a nearby building. As the thick linen cover fell to the ground, Aria saw the true nature of the derelict structure. The first floor has been hollowed out, its walls torn down and replaced by the camouflaged cover. Hiding inside was a contraption that resembled some kind of fighting vehicle that she has seen once in her life, but could not recall its name. The enormous gun barrel on its top pointed at the structure that shot the boy in the head, and fired a single shot.

A deafening explosion ensued. Smoke and cinders replaced the falling snow, turning the world from white to black. Debris of all kinds flew in all directions. Before the dust settled Aria felt that she was hit by something disturbingly soft. As the smoke cleared she found herself staring at a dismembered leg, the shattered femur still leaking marrow.

***Scene Break***

"Master? Aria?" The voice rang in Aria's head as she felt a pair of hands shaking her body. She flailed a bit, and let out a distressed 'ahh' before settling down, fully awake from her dream.

"You were having a nightmare. Are you alright?"

"Mmm." Aria nodded and breathed a sigh of relief. There was no one here except Heinz, and everything would be fine. She felt sluggish as she opened her eyes to daylight. Only after a quick shower and a look at the clock, did she realize that she has slept the morning away, and it was already afternoon.

"That's okay." Heinz assured her. "If you have more energy in the evening, we can take on some new missions in night."

"But what about the daily transmutations? Whatever materials you need for today, you should tell me now."

"Master..." Heinz looked at Aria, then cast his gaze down, communicating silently that he's searching for the right words to saying something important.

"Just say it straight." Aria turned and walked to the window, running her hand through her shoulder-length black hair casually and sparing the boy eye contact to make him less reserved.

"We have enough small-arms and proportional ammunition for one to two full-length engagements. Compared to the guns we have, the kinds of weapons you can transmute are considerably weaker now."

"You're right." Aria led him on, assuring him that she wasn't offended by his comment. She wasn't that powerful of a mage, and she had no particular qualms about it. "The worst I can transmute are gunpowder and reactive material. The first is too weak, and the second is awkward to handle and store, and difficult to wield."

"I don't think you're a bad mage. But unfortunately slow-casting alchemists are underpowered in rough, quick-paced campaigns. I've also thought about making you transmute ammunition, but it would drain a lot of your prana for far too small a stockpile, even if we assume I have a mould of some kind to make the shell for the rounds."

"I see. Transmuting bullets isn't worth the trouble. What then?"

Aria by now has been infected with Heinz's habit of putting an elbow on a table or a knee, and resting his jaw in the palm of the propped hand. She did just that now, as she listened to another one of Heinz's lectures.

"In the past, common war participants, known as 'soldiers,' have the standard equipment of a simple rifle, plus a handful of grenades to use in tricky situations. Now that we have adequate rifles, we need to think about producing adequate grenades."

"So I guess that the little jars of gunpowder and flammables we have aren't enough?"

"They aren't. There are less than a dozen left in our stockpile, and you can make at most half a dozen a day, assuming you do nothing else. No doubt you have realized that the majority of your prana was not spent transmuting concrete to gunpowder, but air to glass for the grenade casings."

"Yeah. That's a waste."

Heinz continued with an alchemy review, which Aria already knew, so she just rested her mind and listened to Heinz's story-like ramble.

"From the base reagents of airborne nitrogen," the servant continued, "you have to traverse quite a few elements before you reach silicon, the closest suitable material with which to make a casing. Even then, glass is not only an oxide of silicon, but of other things as well. You'll have to transmute airborne nitrogen into several different things, while leaving the airborne oxygen intact. If it weren't for your affinity for alchemy, such a feat would have been impossible in the course of a day."

"Um-hmm." Aria hummed, her mouth still covered behind her propping hand.

"At the end of the day, all that work simply houses a pile of gunpowder, good for arson but bad for combat. Our opponents are fortified and armoured targets, such as combat-magi, servants, and their noble phantasms. The next most obvious weapons we lack are explosives of bigger power."

"Is there some way we can transmute those?" Aria wasn't hopeful. If there was a way, Heinz probably would have told her already.

"There is ... but ..."

"Heinz. Just spit it out. I'll work hard on it. Don't be concerned about whether it's demanding on me."

"A century before your time, in the age of wars, standard explosives contained nitro-glycerine, and other petroleum by-products. Now, of course you know that alchemy is slow in altering atoms, but considerably faster in rearranging molecules. If you obtain cheap base materials made of hydrocarbons, transmuting strong explosives for a good alchemist like you becomes elementary. In fact, if your base material naturally contains residue od that can be converted into prana, the transmutation will be easy, fast, and not at all taxing..."

By now Aria's eyes were wide open, a feature exaggerated by the hand that obscured one eye and covered the rest of her face. The entirety of her expression was contained in her single exposed eye, one that mixed utter shock, horror, and accusation, at once forbidding, daring, and compelling the other person to make the repulsive truth obviously clear.

Heinz simply nodded.

"Yes. We should start transmuting corpses into bombs."

***Scene Break***

_I was somewhat relieved when my master finally agreed to my 'undertaking.' I made it very clear that we weren't going to kill anyone for this reason alone. We were technically not stealing either, since bodies of the deceased no longer had existent owners. In fact, we weren't doing anything beyond harvesting natural resources that no one else wanted._

_At least that's what I told her. It was not mine to consider what was right, but what was best for Aria._

_"The looting and recycling of corpses is a philosophy that brings advantages in wartime with minimal tangible harms. It makes sense to be considerate of civilians, or even enemies, but to a real soldier in war, it makes no sense to be considerate of something dead, especially if morale is of no concern."_

_"You're trying to sound harsh. But your stiffness gives you away."_

_I sagged. "Aria, this is really my fault. If I was a stronger servant-"_

_"Rubbish." Master stood up and grabbed my shoulders. "I said I'll do it. Just tell me what to do."_

_Aria placed so much faith in me, that every reason of mine was a good reason, and every strategy of mine was a sound plan. I stress that she wasn't a gullible by any measure; she has had her own opinions of things and her own sense of good and bad. Her trust in me was therefore that much more valuable. It was a source of strength, for me to stay sharp and never let her down._

_"Hmph." She snorted as she deftly picked up an AK-74, loaded its magazines with a moderate slamming click, and stuffed the gun into a padding-filled sporting bag in one graceful motion. Fastening the bag tightly onto her torso, she packed another AK-74 likewise, and handed it to me with a nod._

_"I'll use the 280."_

_"Ehh?" She asked as she made the switch. "There's a good reason why I packed the two lighter guns."_

_"Ja, let's hear it." I was always curious to see how much tactical thinking she has developed._

_"I noticed that the 280 and the bullpup fire different rounds than the 74s. If one of us runs out of ammo in combat, we can use spares from the other if we use the same rounds."_

_"Aha." I was impressed but unsurprised at how keen she was. "You have noted the difference between the standard-45 and light-39 rounds. Those two types are the most commonly used bullets by assault rifles all over the world. Suppose we run into gangs, the spare ammo we loot off them may be of either kind, so we need to have a familiar weapon on hand that can fire whichever."_

_"Mmm." Aria was a bit disappointed that she couldn't outsmart me, but more so, she digested the lesson. I saw in her an elite commando in the making, and her combat aptitude was the least of my concerns..._

_"Okay then." I stood to attention with a warm expression but a formal posture, instilling a sense of seriousness. "We'll commence mission immediately. I'll brief you the details as we go."_

_She followed me outside into the afternoon outdoors, with her usual graceful speed and movements but without the eager excitement from before. Her downcast eyes spoke of her reservation, but she was doing a good job of pulling herself together._

_I needed to take her mind off self-reflection. Her head was already set on the mission, and it was my duty to ease the heart that was repulsed at the thought of going along._

_"We'll start by heading to places with moderately high gang activities at night. We'll lay in wait to salvage weapons and bodies, and make off with the loot when the coast is clear."_

_"Sounds simple." Aria mumbled as we walked towards the city proper._

***Scene Break***

It was almost sundown when they arrived on the north bank, near the Tower of London. "Here's one region where a gang fight could break out." Heinz noted as he shifted the position of the bag on his back. "We'll hide in a civilian shop nearby, and wait until night completely falls."

"Mmm." Aria frowned briefly in thought. "What if the shops close before a fight breaks out? There aren't any abandoned buildings around here for us to take cover in."

"There's always that castle." Heinz pointed to the ancient fort nearby, well aware of the contingencies. "The battlements can give us a vantage point from where we can keep the entire region under surveillance."

"Smart." Aria retorted jadedly, unsurprised at Heinz's preparedness.

The Kokutou Tea Shop, sitting on the north bank and not far from the castle, was a suitable hiding place, as it was open 24-7. A waiter showed them to the tabled couches deep inside the restaurant, smiling warmly as he handed them the menus.

A less-roughed girl would have thought the waiter's smile 'cute,' but Aria only noted the sharp glare passing from his eyes to the thick bag she placed behind her on the sofa seat. She has been very careful not to prop the bag vertically like the way a gangster would store his gun, but she was well aware of the calculated risk of carrying a weapon in broad daylight, concealed or not. She steeled herself to act natural, and returned a grin to the black-haired oriental handsome.

"Would you like to try our all-you-can eat weekend special? It's twenty pounds for two with unlimited tea, sushi snacks, and sandwiches."

"Uh, yeah, sure. We'll be ready to order in a bit." The price was a steal, and it gave them the excuse to dally in the store. Aria was supposing that she had a brush of good luck, until the waiter decided to address her in an awkward way, having no doubt guessed her ethnicity from her face.

"Hai, onee-san!" The mildly inappropriate waiter spread his mouth in a giddy grin, his eyes now almost narrowed to happy lines.

"Watashiwa 'onee-san' janai..." The words, riddled with her American accent, left a raw feeling in her mouth. For a brief moment she felt like she was a child again, and the aftertaste became worse. She let out a small, cynical grunt, and turned back to stare at the table surface. The waiter meanwhile acted like he did not hear her reply, and Aria thought in retrospect that it was probably for the best. As she turned back to Heinz, she found him staring at her. "WHAT?" She scowled in a low voice.

"I find it interesting that they don't have a buffet menu." Heinz whispered discreetly across the table.

"Well, every store is different."

"I understand, master."

"Heinz!" Aria has long figured out that the phrase was Heinz's way of sulking when he felt she wasn't giving him enough attention. "I didn't say anything to him!" She hissed, visibly annoyed. "The creep called me 'sis' and I told him off."

"Not about THAT." Heinz replied quietly. "I don't think this store even has a buffet. Something's not right. I'm serious."

Aria tensed. Maybe the waiter suspected their bags, and was trying to keep them occupied while he calls for help. "You think he's off to call the police or his gang? We should get out."

"No, stay put for a moment. Remain calm and alert."

The waiter returned with a piece of paper and a pencil. Aria caught another elusive flicker behind his glasses before he switched to a serious, subdued voice.

"Madam and sir. May I ask you to take extra care with the tools inside your bags?"

Aria gave no reply and simply looked at him. If he asked them to take their weapons and leave, she would welcome the chance to avoid openly blowing cover.

"Today at around midnight, there will likely be gangsters crashing my store. If they see your... tools, the will trash my place."

"What do you want?" Aria replied flatly.

"I'm going to have to ask you to leave before midnight, if that's okay with you."

"Are you in charge of the store?" Heinz broke his silence towards the waiter.

"Yes sir, I'm the owner."

"My dear." Heinz addressed Aria in a way that roused the least suspicion. "Why don't we do what the good owner says?"

"Of course." Aria caught on. "We'll leave before midnight."

"Oh, thanks so much!" The young owner coupled a grateful bow with a charming smile and reverted to his regular cheerful voice and posture. "So, can I take your order?"

***Scene Break***

Everything from the spicy tuna to the squid rings tasted great, and Aria savoured it all nibble by nibble. Heinz was having his third round of sweet seaweed salad after a two bowls of soup and a serving of agedashi tofu. They both ate slowly, letting time go by until midnight. "His observation abilities are sharp." Heinz spoke of the shop owner, still dwelling on the young man for seeing through the cover of his long sporting bags. "We are dressed like rich people carrying tripods or golf clubs, and there are people on the street dressed almost exactly like us, with identical bags..."

"Maybe he's just got a sixth sense, you know?" Aria shrugged. "Some people just have a way of knowing things that you can't analyze or understand."

"Hmm. Maybe." Heinz mumbled after swallowing a forkful of seaweed. "But he has the eyes of a soldier; he has eyes that grill the world for answers rather than just taking it in."

Aria swallowed another mouthful of fried shrimp sushi. "Yeah, I noticed that."

"I should have suspected something the instant I saw their ad of being open 24-7." Heinz lowered his voice further. "Each area of the inner city is controlled by a gang, and they forbid stores to open late-night, as to reduce witnesses to their gang activities. A store that dares to open like this must have connections in the underground." Aria nodded as saw the merit in Heinz's reasoning. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't picture the imprudent young owner as anything remotely like a gangster.

At length the clock reached ten. Aria was surprised that the owner hasn't come to remind them of the time, as they have been sitting in the shop for over five hours. "Should we get ready to leave?" She asked Heinz, whose only sign of restlessness was his frequent peeking at his watch. But Heinz only kicked her under the table, and rolled his eyes once quickly at the store entrance. Aria followed his gaze discreetly and found a familiar couple standing at the door. A lean, dark-haired girl with narrow eyes and red pupils stood behind a red-haired young man, as they waited for a waiter to seat them. Although the girl was no longer dressed in her golden bloodstained armour, but clad instead in a sleeveless black vest and a black stud-belted skirt, the insane glare in her eyes and the habitual licking of her lips was unmistakable. The redhead master wore the same white jacket from before, leaving Aria no doubt that she has crossed paths with the same rampaging killers she saw on the first morning she met Heinz. Aria bent down to take the sporting bags, intending to leave with Heinz at the first possible moment; but Heinz gave her a light kick and a small but vigorous shake of the head, signalling her to stay put. They carried on normally with their tea, drawing no attention to themselves as they observed the red-haired master.

At this time of the day, only a few guests remained in the shop. The handfuls of employees have mostly gone home, leaving only the owner himself. The menacing impression of the new guests did not seem to bother him, as he showed them to their seats and tended to their orders. As another quarter of an hour passed by in a one-sided tension, Aria found it ironic that a shop owner who gets himself worked up over a pair of concealed guns suspected nothing out of a pair of eccentric killers. The interesting moment came when their first round of soup was served. The redhead, who up to that point clearly seemed to be the master, spoon-fed his servant as she made the minimal movements to receive the spoon that was at the edge of her mouth. Her expression was blank as her master fed her, who carefully kept a napkin beneath her chin to wipe any spills, so that not a single drop would fall on her lap. Anyone who has not felt the cold edge of that woman's bladed fists would have been fooled by the docile scene of a diligent boy caring for a seemingly disabled girl. Someone who has never heard of the boy's cold-blooded kill-commands would now feel terribly sorry for him, as there was not even a single expression on the girl's face, much less one of gratitude or joy.

The shop owner's voice interrupted Aria's observation.

"Umm, excuse me. It's almost midnight, and gangsters could show up any time now. I'm not sure what you intend to do, but please consider leaving my store out of conflicts, so that we may..."

"No worries. Give us the bill." Aria cut him off with a gesture. She didn't want to run the risk of having the owner ramble on and make the other master overhear that they carried guns. Heinz deliberately delayed the bill payment for some reason, pretending to do useless math with the coins. Aria guessed that Heinz wanted to take one last good look at their rivals, so that they would be more prepared when they inevitably clash.

Aria and Heinz exhaled in relief when they exited the shop onto the midnight streets. The redhead and his vicious servant did not even stir as they passed by, and now they have made their way to relative safety. "So what now?" Aria asked. "Do we continue with the plan?"

"Getting exposed changes a few things." Heinz muttered under his breath. "But that is no reason to abort the operation. Whatever gangsters connected with the restaurant will have to deal with that mage and his servant if they were to visit the store tonight. Corpses will likely result, while the chances of us being targeted by anyone during the chaos would be low."

"Mmm. So now we'll go up the ruined castle and look down from there?"

"Negative. It seems like the restaurant itself will be the combat zone. We should hide ourselves in its perimeter, and seize any unsecured assets."

Aria nodded in acknowledgement and followed Heinz into a metre-wide gap between the tea shop and another building to the side. As they made their way into the narrow space, they could already hear the sound of loud, meaningless cursing coming from down the street, most likely belonging to one of the gangsters forecasted by the shop owner. The next sounds soon burst on the shop's premise, of breaking glass plus violently screamed threats and obscenities.

The immediate response from within the store did not come from the owner. "Berserker! Kill EVERYTHING!" The youth's unstable voice could be heard out in the streets as he showed his true colours. It would not be hard to imagine that the poor owner would be killed indiscriminately as well. Excessively loud stabbing sounds became mingled with what sounded like the screams of slaughtered human livestock. In her morbid fascination, Aria wanted to take a peek around the corner at the front of the store, but Heinz held her back with a curt gesture; he wasn't about to let Aria expose herself to a servant's superior senses of motion and sound, and get herself discovered.

Then a howling sound whipped through the air, followed by more identical sounds in quick succession. They were the angry, lifeless noises of projectiles, making some kind of unsettling whistle as they launched forward. From their angle in the narrow cover, Aria and Heinz made out two figures standing on the roof of a house across from the tea shop. The bowman responsible for the howling arrows was clad in light, link-plated armour, with an unusually large composite bow that he nevertheless handled easily. Behind the tall bowman was a smaller figure in a noble's attire, his features obscured in the dark.

"Rider." The Noble ordered his servant. "Show no mercy!"

"Khulaan-Bataar!" Rider called out some kind of attack, but Aria had no idea what it was. She felt a vortex of prana condense towards the roof of the house that Rider stood on. In a brief flash of light both Rider and his master became seated on identically-looking summoned horses, mounts that were lean, strong, and muscular. The master's horse followed that of the servant and leapt from roof to roof, while Rider himself flexibly pivoted about his waist and shot arrows backwards as his mount flew ahead. From Aria's hiding position, Berserker's actions could not be seen. But her eyes certainly seemed to be adept to seeing whatever was in her field of vision. At first Aria thought that it was simply because her eyes were getting used to the dark, but then she realized that the night was somehow slowly getting brighter, as if the sun was rising. Aria knew it was supposed to be only midnight, and there was no way that it could already be the time of dawn. Meanwhile the servants and masters could no longer be seen from where Heinz and Aria were, and the only sign of battle was the constant howling of arrows.

"Heinz." Aria whispered loudly. "Should we sneak away? This light looks like some kind of thaumaturgy."

"They might see us. Let me have a look." Heinz armed himself with the AK-280 from his bag. Creeping to the opening of the tiny alleyway, he stuck his head slightly out for a quick look before concealing himself again. "Berserker is chasing Rider around the rooftops. I couldn't see her master."

"Hey Heinz." Aria prodded her servant to get his full attention. "Scratch the idea of running away. What if we go out and shoot them?"

"That depends on how many masters we can eliminate by doing so. If we engage one side, the other side might exploit our opening. We might even fail to make a kill, and end up exposed."

"So should we stay put?" Aria was agitated. "There's daylight at midnight and it looks like some kind of spell. Probably Rider's master, who is illuminating the area for better visibility. I don't like this one bit."

"Remain calm." Heinz gave Aria a tap of reassurance. "Now ready your weapon, and fire on the first hostile that appears in our narrow scope." When Aria took out her light rifle, Heinz gestured that they should switch weapons. "You had good results with the 280." He whispered. "So, you should use this." Aria accepted the offer and took over the gun. Adding to the calming presence from Heinz, the weighty weapon in her hand gave her another layer of reassurance. Making no use of the scope on the gun, she raised the assault rifle over her shoulder and aimed it at the centre of her field of vision in a standby posture.

The clear shot never came. A shout of "Berserker, disengage" rang out from a few buildings down the street, and the sky suddenly turned dark again, afflicting Aria with a disorienting blind effect. "Aria! Get up and run with me, now!" Heinz suddenly reacted even before Aria regained her sense of sight. She ran across the street blind, guided only by Heinz's tugging hand. They stopped on the other side of the street, in another gap between two adjacent shops. As her eyes readjusted to the darkness, she could now see the front of the tea shop. The young owner calmly went about the front of the shop, sweeping up the glass shards of broken windows. She also noted that Heinz has apparently dragged a gangster's corpse inside their dark hideout, and a lump formed in her throat at the task that lay ahead of her. However, along with that of Heinz's, her attention shifted back to the store. The noble master, backed by his servant Rider, was now accosting the shop owner. The cornered young man continued to sweep glass into his dustpan even as they approached, perhaps a sign of denial that all his attempts to keep peace in his shop has fallen short.

"Mr. Kokutou." The noble announced in a grave voice with a tinge of mock sympathy. "I hope you realize your own predicament."

"I do." The owner's voice sounded bland, with neither anger nor fear.

The noble snorted. "You opened your shop after my curfew despite my warning, and now your post-curfew customer killed my men. You have a hefty price to pay."

"That is a poor excuse to sack my shop."

"You've had your chance to preserve your shop." The noble raised a lecturing finger. "Had you obeyed my curfew and halted your business every day from midnight to morning, this would not be happening to you."

"There are people in the city who look to my shop as a late-night haven, in light of these dangerous streets. If I close after midnight, I'd be denying all those customers something irreplaceable. I simply cannot do that."

"But you'll have to." The noble declared flatly. "This is your last warning to close your shop for good and never show your face here again. If you refuse, you will die."

"Do you feel the urge to control everything around you?" The young owner's voice carried a tone sympathy that must have sounded all the more offensive to the haughty noble.

"To have myself in control of everything is no longer an urge, but essentially a fact." The tyrannical undertone of the noble's voice became even more blatant. "I have already united virtually all the gangs in the city under my name. This whole city belongs to me after dark. Your eyesore of a shop threatened to harbour eyewitnesses to my men's activities, and therefore has ALREADY been closed down."

"Think about your options." The noble continued as he began to walk away. "You have until tomorrow midnight to run for your life."

"Mr. Rodman." The young man called out to the bully. "Don't you think this is all rather imprudent? The coalition police are a big patron of my tea and sandwiches. How would they-"

"You're pushing it!" The gangster boss boomed as he turned around. At a gesture from his hand, Rider aimed an arrow at the young owner. "You have tested the tolerance of Rodman the Patient one too many times! Since you're so eager, you can make your choice right now! Close down or die!"

The owner sighed heavily as he closed his eyes. He took off his glasses and placed them in a pocket.

"Our shop will open tomorrow morning at nine. Our hours from then will be twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. We welcome you to sample our tea, snacks, and fine-cooking, all for a decent price."

"Famous last words." Rodman the Patient remarked coldly as Rider's arrow flew from his composite bow.


	7. Campaign: Morbid Harvest II

Aria looked on as Rider shot his arrow. She was used to seeing people get killed in vicious street fighting and brutal gang executions; so rather than averting her gaze she fixed her eyes on the boy in an informal vigil for his passing. Although she initially disliked the young tea shop owner, what stood out the most to her now was that the boy had guts. Although at times he gave off the stereotypical image of a superficial service worker, his sincere words in the face of death seemed to amply convey a good heart.

Of course, she wasn't going to help him. She had a Grail to win, and she knew better than to break out of cover to save an unrelated boy whom she couldn't even get to in time if she tried. When the arrow left the bow, Aria was about to silently ask Heinz whether she should snipe Rider from behind. But at that same instant, in a quick pinch that almost did not register in Aria's perception, the arrow was knocked wide.

The young shop owner has drawn a gladius that was hidden within the shaft of his dustpan. His lightening-fast cutting parry was so precise, that it it was dull enough to bat the arrow off track, yet sharp enough to cut the arrow in half as it veered off-course. He then followed up with a vicious counterattack. Rodman the Patient was standing so close, and was so unprepared, that he might have been slain on the spot, had Rider not stepped in the way. Watching from the side, Aria was astonished at the boy's sudden show of strength; but she became further taken aback when she saw the extent to which he could wound a servant with a seemingly mundane short sword. When Rider blocked off his master with his body, the boy's simple blade ripped through his armour. In the first split second there was the penetrating sound of metal on metal, followed by the wet slosh of cutting flesh, with the grating sound of ripping steel returning as the phantom-like boy twisted his sword before pulling back. From the side, Aria reasoned that the powerful servant surely had the ability to negate such a mundane attack, if only he anticipated such ferocity from such a meek figure. Regardless though, the blade had made its point. Rider summoned two spectral horses and rode off with his master, unable to fire his Parthian parting shots due to the severed tendons in his shoulders. The boy did not give chase, and went back to cleaning up the shards of glass.

"Urusai..." The voice of a young-to-middle-aged woman came from within the store. Aria realized her presence only now, but she has already retreated into the depth of the shop, leaving Aria with only the sight of a vague image of her shadow. "Gomen-nasai." The owner replied in his British-accented Japanese as he continued to sweep the store premise, cleaning only the glass while completely ignoring the corpses that lay about.

Aria meanwhile began the transmutation of the dead body at her feet. It was an extremely quick process, but not quick enough to glaze the sick details of flesh and organs bubbling away into slick liquid. Shaping the resulting mixture and forming an empty container around it, she began a transmutation process that would be barely ten minutes long. As Heinz has forecasted, such spells on these subjects did not even require her full attention to sustain the channelling.

Heinz was meanwhile completely lost in the foreign language between the shop owner and the mystery woman. "Aria, what were they saying?"

"Some woman in the store complained about noise, and the owner replied sorry."

"How oblivious." Heinz shook his head, but froze the instant he saw the young owner looking their way. Aria saw it too, and levelled her gun without hesitation. She thought she saw a glare in the shop owner's eyes for a brief second, but she wasn't sure of what she saw. The boy meanwhile raised his gladius, but took a step back, showing no intention of closing in.

"Stand down." Aria told Heinz, deliberately making herself loud enough for the shop owner to hear. The detailed expressions on his face became illuminated as the shop's indoor lights lit up once again. She saw that he did not visibly relax, but shifted his vision from Aria to the pile of clothes and bones at her feet.

He made a light 'humph,' as though he has understood Aria and Heinz's intent, before turning around to the trash dump and throwing out the glass. Now completely devoid of his veneer of business hospitality, he ignored the two troopers from then on, as he went back into the shop.

"Now what?" Aria asked a contemplative Heinz. "Finish what we came to do?"

"Might as well." Heinz's voice sounded thoughtful and far away, and Aria could imagine why. They've met way too many dangerous characters up to now; and even as the feeling of being underpowered and outclassed sunk in, they knew that they've only scratched the tip of this war's iceberg.

***Scene Break***

The walk back to base in the dark early morning was suspenseful, but Heinz decided that it was less sound to stay in the conflict zone until sunrise. They needed to reduce the chances for their operation to become further exposed, so he thought it a bad idea to risk either Rider or Berserker's possible return. Aria sharpened her perception as much as she could as she went along, well aware that the threat of being ambushed or followed were automatically entailed by retreating to base under the circumstances.

Something was especially unsettling about the retreat from the well-developed streets of the city centre, through the broken roads in the slums, to the wasted and derelict East End. All along the way, the murky darkness of their distant surroundings reeked of a ghastly, active nothingness to Aria's sixth sense. Down every street and to the either side of every intersection, the obscured, empty post-midnight walkways hosted neither visible movement nor audible sounds, but it felt as though this lifelessness itself became something substantial and encroaching. Aria tried scoffing at herself for exhibiting such a fear of the dark, but she still felt as though Berserker, Rider, or something worse could be hiding around every corner, liable at any time to jump out and rip Heinz and herself to pieces. When they finally returned to their abandoned flat and closed the door behind them, Aria turned on all the lights before diving onto her mattress.

***Scene Break***

Aria woke up in the afternoon to find Heinz asleep on his mattress with his outdoor clothes. The cup of cheap tea on the desk nearby was still warm, meaning that he has been continuously awake for over twenty hours and has only collapsed recently. Sheets and sheets of scribbled notes lay around the desk; one pile contained point-form summaries of known masters, servants and other characters, one pile contained some formulae for transmutation. Aria studied the latter, which turned out to be a requisition request from Heinz to transmute the chemicals retrieved from last night with airborne nitrogen and oxygen to form high-explosive materials.

The small jars of petrol compounds harvested last night have been placed in a neat row at the foot of a wall, loosely sealed with aluminium foil. Aria was familiar with the transmuting formulae for what she was to synthesize, so she got to work right away without studying Heinz's brief but redundant written dissertation on the formation of explosive chemicals such as TNT. What did occupy Aria's mind was the way Heinz overworked himself every night; after each successive phase of their campaign his workaholic pattern only seemed to worsen. He was like a string that was taut nearly every moment of the day, and Aria worried that if this kept up, he'd eventually snap in two. Related thoughts gave her angst as she spent the next hour transmuting and reflecting. She felt stuck chest-deep in this swamp of a war, outclassed by rivals from all sides. Heinz has been churning out strategy after strategy, day after night after day, spreading himself thin just to keep her cause afloat. As she finished channelling on the last of the now-dangerous containers, Aria looked again at Heinz, who slept like the dead. She wanted to undress him and put a blanket over him, so he could sleep more comfortably, but she was afraid that it would wake him up.

***Scene Break***

_I opened my eyes to the room's lamp-lights. I still felt dead tired, and not a lifetime's worth of militaristic discipline could remove the heaviness that hung on my eyelids. But my mind wasn't muddled. I took a look at the time and lifted myself up from the mattress, knowing that six hours of sleep is already a gift for the average wartime infantry. My muscles, sore from sheer sleep deprivation over several days, wanted to lax and collapse my frame back down into the tempting cushions, but I gave a direct order to my bones and tendons to hold the line as I made my way to the bathroom. A splash of cold water and a cup of tea would re-grease the axels on this machine, and my mind and hands would be good to go again._

_"You're not going to sleep again in the next twenty hours, are you?" Aria's voice, laden with concern and warm reproach, greeted me as I made my way back to the living room._

_"No, master. There's work to be done."_

_"Heinz." Aria gently protested. "The grenades are all done. You can rest until tomorrow."_

_"Production is but one of many actions to be taken in war." I replied, hoping that a sophisticated-sounding statement would seal the argument. "Gathering, production, intelligence, deployment… these are all things that we must take care of, and no one else can help us. There are too many things to do, and we are short on time."_

_"Bullshit." Aria was more adamant than usual. "All I know is the simple fact that fatigue penalizes morale and combat potency. On the battlefield, a tired soldier will always be reacting one step behind, and whoever fires second won't live to fire at all."_

_Her words were yet another sign of how her strategic instincts were growing by leaps and bounds. To call her a commando in the making would not be an exaggeration, but an understatement. "Both of what we've said is valid." I partially conceded. "But tonight there are very important things that have to be done right away." I walked to the fridge as I spoke, took out a piece of bread and bit into it hungrily. Aria poured me a glass of milk and sat down beside me at the table in resignation, seemingly having accepted that I wasn't going to take the night off._

_She genuinely cared for my welfare, not as a means but as an end. But that only meant that I must work harder, to compensate for the energy she wasted on caring for me rather than for herself. Still, it warmed me to care for her and receive her care in turn, not the least because in a time of war, a fighting unit often becomes an island unto themselves. I must work hard, because I was all that she had. The vice versa was also true, perhaps even more so._

_"So, what's there to talk about?" She knew the drill by now; at every evening there would be a strategy session. Those discussion periods were lengthy, at times going way beyond the scope of any one mission, but they were chances for me to cram as much information into her receptive mind as I possibly could. Tonight was no exception._

_"Firstly, let's go over where we stand in our campaign. Our weapon stockpiles are growing, and becoming more potent. We've identified a number of masters and servants, obtained minimal information on their whereabouts and activities, and witnessed some of their methods of attack. However, we have no leads on the actual Grail itself."_

_"So, what should be our tactical objective? Search and destroy, or securing asset?" Master was talking like a professional with just a week's worth of combat training; I could obsess over her brilliance forever if I wanted to, but for better or worse I had to focus on more important things. "The intuitive thing would be to focus on search-and-destroy until the situation changes." I replied. "Magic-wise I am simply a scholar of mundane magecraft applications, and you are a practical mage without any academic background. As a result we are probably the least magically disposed out of all the factions, and searching for the Grail directly becomes our short suit. We are the least likely to discover a clue pointing to the Grail, even if it was in our face."_

_"Oh. That's not good." Her undertone was asking for 'the plan.' She was so faithfully sure that I had one, although in this case I did not disappoint._

_"Our specialty is to wage war; so taking out enemy teams is relatively our strength. Thus we should focus on taking out rival factions in a certain order that will benefit us the most overall."_

_"That means we need to gather far more intelligence than we currently have." Aria continued my train of thought. "There are supposed to be, what, seven other servants? We've only seen two so far. We can't decide who to take out first right now."_

_I entered into one of my smart-ass moments again, eager to give another demonstration of tactical analysis. "True for the most part. But we can still deduce some heuristics and guidelines. It is safe to assume that most masters operate in a renegade manner similar to us, with the majority of their decisive activities made in the night time. That noble Rodman is a key player here because he controls all the gangs at night, and will serve to disrupt other masters wherever they roam. Furthermore he doesn't seem to be the type to be able to go very far even if left on his own, because he only seems intent on using Rider to enforce his authority, rather than searching for the Grail..."_

_"Right, I get that." Aria cut me off before I was starting to ramble. "Rider's master is a simple-minded noble who is going to get into everybody's way, so it's better to keep him around to slow down the pace of the war. But what do we do about everyone else? How do we find them, and hit them when they're not looking?"_

_"We'll take it one step at a time." I assured my master. "The first step is to track their whereabouts, and I've just the plan to do that. You see at night, every part of the city will likely be crawling with Rodman's ruffians. When the other masters come out to roam, there will be lots of killing. We'll observe which places in town contain the most number of killings, and those hot spots will pinpoint to where the other masters are."_

_"Uh, yeah, except we can only scout one part of the city at a time and rumours aren't reliable." Aria was inclined to wave it off. "How are we going to compile a death profile of the city that's up-to-date?"_

_"Simple. We'll watch live feed from the news."_

_"WHAT?" Aria seriously thought I was joking. "How are you gonna get a freakin TV?" She dropped the sophisticated language and slipped back into her alley-talk, a subtle hint that she thought I lacked common sense._

_"There's a TV in the tea shop that streams the city news. Better yet they're open all day, and we can check in there every day in the early morning."_

_My master's mouth opened halfway and hung there for a second. She furrowed her brows in a frown as she took time to convince herself that there was nothing blatantly wrong with my suggestion. Before she could think of anything though, I landed a supplementary justification as a finisher. "Also remember that if masters get hungry at night, Kokutou's Tea Shop is one of the only places where they could go to for refreshments. If we enter the store in the early morning, we might even catch a few masters coming off their night patrols."_

_"Is that good or bad?" Aria asked doubtfully. "If we run into Berserker again she'll try to kill us."_

_"We actually want more run-ins, especially with other masters so we can learn about them." I explained. "Don't forget that the shop owner is his own best bouncer. He won't tolerate fighting in his store. Plus, even the most vicious master needs some inhibition on the metro premise during daytime, so there's not much to worry about. Last but not least, we don't have much magical presence, so no one would suspect us so easily of being master and servant."_

_"Mmm." Aria mumbled, partly to me and partly to herself. "It's crazy. But you if say so, I guess it could work."_

_"It should." I let loose a grin. Normally I'm never this complacent, but I must have been just tired. I yawned in a chain and stretched my arms, before I realized that Aria was staring at me._

_She gave me a thin, crooked smile, her body language saying something to the degree of "oh, what am I supposed to do with such a stubborn boy?" It wasn't as though she actually didn't know how to work with me; it was just an affectionate statement, the kind given by amused and exasperated girls to their wayward male companions. I understood all that in theory, but I wasn't exactly prepared for the ambush of her faint, resigned smile. Sure enough, it paved the way for her to put me back to bed until four in the morning._

_But seriously, she could have simply given her servant an order. It would have achieved the same effects…_

_Well, unless she took how I felt into account, as I'm sure she has._

***Scene Break***

They were on their way back to the tea shop in the dim early morning when the sounds of gunfire pierced the still-quiet air of the empty streets. Tracing the trail of the sounds, Aria followed Heinz over to the section of battle-torn slums just in from the East End. From behind the cover of nearby buildings they watched a unit of coalition police fire at the windows of an isolated apartment from behind the cover of their cars. The gangsters garrisoned in the building returned fire from the balconies with their small arms, and a volatile standoff ensued as two police moved in under cover to break down the building's barricaded entrance.

"Rodman has clearly been very aggressive with his activities." Aria mused. "The inept, overpaid, and undermanned Coalition Police Service doesn't usually bother itself with rough gangs."

"Huh." Heinz chuckled coldly. "Look at how poorly they are handling themselves; their riot shields are the only things keeping most of them alive."

"Let's get out of here." Aria was ready to leave in disgust. "I'm fond of neither police nor gangs."

"Wait." Heinz was hatching another ploy. "The coalition police have some interesting weapons and tools that we'd want to get our hands on. What do you say we lurk around and scavenge the remains?"

"Are you crazy? You are going to raid the police?" Aria was incredulous. "Whoever wins here is going to confiscate all the weapons of the losers. If you want to loot anything, you'll have to sneak in under their crossfire before the fight finishes. Do we have any chances of pulling it off?"

"More than a good chance." Heinz concluded after a few seconds of frowning, a sign that he was simulating the operation in his head. "Neither side seem to be very smart, so there's a lot of room for us to work with." He looked to Aria for the final call. "What do you say, master?"

"Fine." Aria bit her lips slightly. "Tell me what to do."

Heinz led her around the dozen-man police blockade, and circled to the back of the building. The police did not have the manpower for a full encirclement, so the building's backside saw no action. Aria noted that the gangsters did not seem to post any sentries on the back side, either due to an oversight or due to being undermanned. Still, the windows on the first floor were barred, and the walls couldn't be scaled, so Aria still couldn't see any way to sneak into the building. "The building doesn't have any doors in its back." She remarked, and wondered if Heinz didn't take this possibility into account before this break-in attempt.

"We don't need doors." Heinz simply picked up several rocks, and threw them through some windows on the second and third floors. Aria watched in disbelief, not sure if Heinz actually planned to climb through the second floor window somehow without the aid of ropes or ladders. "Are you fucking serious?" Aria blurted in alley-speak, as the loud blaring of building-wide brake-in alarms rang out from the broken windows. Heinz didn't answer her right away. Instead of trying to climb up the impossible walls, he quickly led her back over the fences surrounding the building's premise and stealthily returned to the building's front.

Back behind the cover of neighbouring structures, Heinz began explaining. "When I saw that the gangsters didn't post sentries behind the building, I guessed that they were either stupid or undermanned. Had we broke in then, we might easily dispatch the gangsters, but we'll face the police head-on at their full power. So instead I created a diversion at the gangsters' back."

"And what's that going to accomplish?" Aria was still a bit lost. Perhaps Heinz was so excited at the prospect of looting police armaments that his explanation skills suffered.

"The police will soon catch on that the gangsters are distracted, not the least because of the alarm that is blaring inside. Recognizing that their enemy is in disarray but still hasn't suffered casualties, the simple-minded police will opt for an all-out attack, and swarm inside the building to overwhelm their opponents."

"Ohhh." Aria understood now. "So you are not going to raid the battle scene, but rather steal weapons from the unattended cars."

"Exactly. Take a look over there. It's almost our cue to act."

Aria looked at the fire exchange from afar. There seemed to be fewer gangsters perched on the various balconies in the building now, doubtlessly indicating that they've sent some men to check on the break-ins behind their backs. As the sentry fire thinned, the bulk of the police force ran at the gate, rammed down the front door barricade, and entered the structure with guns blazing. Two guards remained behind to watch the entrance, and they were busy firing their hastily deployed battle rifles to suppress a pair of remaining sentry balconies. The thugs under fire turned out to be even more unskilled than the police, and failed quickly. While the two police were blinded by their own riot shields, Aria and Heinz went up against the far side of one of the police vans, and crouched behind the vehicle's body down at the wheels. They didn't risk exchanging words now, but both servant and master understood their options. Any spare weapons were clearly stored inside, and all they had to do was to open the door and help themselves to the items. However, all doors on the van were closed, and the buckling sound of any one door opening would rouse the two guards. It was clear that they had to deal with them one way or another; and the choice was between taking the weapons and shooting the guards, or hijacking the entire van and making a run for it.

A more sheltered or reserved person in Aria's shoes would have been unnerved at this point, for it was clear that there was no turning back. It was already a lucky break that the police didn't see their feet from under the van on their way forward, and if they ran back now they would really be pushing their luck. But Aria's focus was only on Heinz now; whatever course of action he called on, she would jump on it without looking back. Maybe it was silly, but taking part in civil felony alongside the brilliant boy gave her an immature sense of delinquent satisfaction. Time trickled second by second, as Aria held her breath and sharpened her mind and senses. Whatever plan her servant called on, she would be ready.

Suddenly an idea came into Aria's head. She carefully poked her head out from the van's backside, and fixed her line of sight around the lobby's broken doors. The two police stood to either side in ambush, poking their shields into the doorway from time to time to fish for any ambushing fire. Aria momentarily turned back to Heinz with an inquisitive stare, asking him silently to decide what to do. The servant frowned briefly in thought before making a steering motion with his hands and pointing at the driver's door. Aria nodded and made a series of gestures, first pointing towards the guards, then making a shooting motion, then a pulling motion, and finally a steering motion. Heinz raised a quizzical eyebrow before giving her a thumbs-up, essentially conveying the statement of 'whatever you have in mind, make it happen.'

Aria turned back towards the unsuspecting guards, and rapidly transmuted a small volume of air right between them. The air burst loudly with a cracking spark, creating the impression of a ricocheting bullet. Immediately, one police crouched into the doorway with his riot shield to draw fire from the illusory enemy, while the other fired into the lobby without hesitation. In their moment of distraction, Heinz boarded the driver's seat. As he turned the keys and pressed down the hand brake, Aria boarded from the sliding door on the side. The two police were dumbfounded for a moment before turning around, unsure of what to do with their vehicle moving on its own. The more decisive of the two opted to fire on the van after a few seconds of stunned pause, but Aria has already reinforced the back window with magic, which negated the incoming rounds that would have shattered though. She briefly wondered whether the guards would chase after them with their remaining vehicle, but then she realized that it didn't matter, because the dupes were already hopelessly far behind.

A convenient fact was that the covert-ops van itself had the looks of a civilian vehicle, which prevented it from standing out to the few onlookers and witnesses that actually roamed the streets just after sunrise. After several hasty detours through the more remote and sparsely populated areas of the slums, they drove the vehicle outside the greater city area altogether. They finally came to a stop in the wilds, where there were no more roads or signs of other people. They were in relative safety for the time being, and Aria breathed a sigh of relief as she went down from the van for a gulp of outdoor air.


	8. Fate: Into the Night I

Ervin parried another slash from Archer's training sword in the stairwells of the derelict apartment. The session has been gruelling as usual, but Ervin was quickly becoming more skilled. When the training sessions first began less than two weeks ago in the outskirts, Ervin's only role in sword practice was to be hit. But with a basic knowledge of swordsmanship and his natural strength and instincts, he picked up very fast. Having grown used to defending against Archer's relentless training sword, Ervin's disposition while under attack was now steady enough for him to spot an occasional opening in his mentor's assaults, and attempt counterattacks.

Archer has raised his sword for an overhead attack, a powerful and slippery swing that would doom an opponent who tried to parry where they should dodge. It was a realistic move. Ervin has made six parries in a row, and an enemy would naturally make an anti-parry attack in hopes that Ervin's habitual reflexes kick in before his proper judgement. But Ervin's instinct already told him to not repeat the same thing for a seventh time, and he rode on that instinct for a natural counter. He sidestepped forward with his entire body, and used the momentum of his torso to give his forward-stabbing sword a natural boost. Ervin has seen Archer use the forward sidestep to counter overhead attacks during his dream cycles, and Ervin was smart enough to apply that knowledge here.

But Archer's downward swing suddenly changed direction halfway down, as he destabilized the balance of his lanky body and spun on one of his heels. Archer's body naturally twisted out of Ervin's way, and the scenario now saw the servant swinging his training sword sideways at Ervin's exposed back. The comparatively novice master was promptly knocked down once again, having gained a new rash of horrible pain but gritting his teeth and sucking in air to avoid crying out. "Again!" Ervin growled with determination as he pushed himself up and invited Archer to another round of sparring.

He knew that he needed to grow stronger, to raise the chances of him winning the war. If he wanted Archer and himself to cover each other's backs, he'll have to be able to hold his own. It was an absurd notion that his powers should come anywhere close to that of a guardian spirit, but after a week of this war he realized that that any master-servant duo was only as strong as its weakest point. As such, he could not afford to remain a weak link. He constantly reminded himself of his personal cause; that there might be a horrible fate looming over the heads of everyone around him. The words of his foster parents that leaked into his childhood ears never ceased to resurface in the deeper recesses of his mind.

A kin that they never see is a kin that they'll never harm. Both Elise and himself have heard it one night past bedtime, hidden behind closed doors. Elise soon put on the display that she's put those words behind her, and moved on with life. Ervin himself, on the other hand, could not let it go. The foster parents that have loved them and tended them died miserably in the end, and Ervin understood that on some higher level it was his fault. The more Elise acted happy to cheer him up, the guiltier he felt. He's wished to the Root for a miracle, and in all impossibility, it has come to him. He should be giving it his all. It should be his only priority, his only goal. And yet he has caught himself slacking in so many ways, that only painful training eased his conscience.

"Master?"

"Master." Ervin blinked his clouded green eyes as Archer called on him a second time. "That's enough for one day. A most essential component of training is rest. Go back inside, wash up and rest a bit before our night patrol."

"But I can do better! I can-" Ervin's words were cut short by a loud growl from his stomach.

"I'm not impressed." Archer gave a wry, crooked grin. "Continuing in this state would be a waste." The servant's voice carried a firmness in it that made the point to Ervin that he wasn't taking no for an answer. Ervin resigned with an 'alright,' and headed to the cold showers.

Ervin discovered shortly thereafter that Archer wasn't just a master of swords, but also an impressive chef who could work wonders with the simplest ingredients. Ervin has thought that the grocery shopping done earlier during the day was for emergency rations, rather than skilfully prepared meals. After filling himself with a mix of spicy stir-fried vegetables, he went on to marvel at the efficiency of Archer's post-meal cleanup, which simply consisted of letting traced plates and table tools disappear on their own.

***Scene Break***

Daylight disappeared after six o'clock, and it was time for Ervin to patrol the city streets with Archer. Looking at the map, there were several immediate places on the north bank to investigate. Tower 42 and the Tower of London were immediately to the south, while St. Paul's Cathedral was further southwest. Scratching the hand-drawn map on the table with the back of a pen, Ervin pointed out their choices one by one.

"Uh, right. I guess it makes more sense to start digging at what's right under our noses, so we can make sure whether there are dangerous neighbours on our premise." Ervin reasoned hand-wavingly. "So that means, for the first night or two, we should focus on the north side of the river."

"I can see merit in that." Archer was taking the back seat, encouraging Ervin to take on the weight of decision-making like a proper master. "Do what you think is best. There aren't many clues to guide us at the moment, so any strategy you choose is a hit-and-miss. But as your servant, I will commit to whatever decision you make."

"How about we start with St. Paul's?" Ervin picked at whim as he readied his gear for the patrol run. They just needed to decide a place to go to now, so that they could hit the streets. Any marked spot on the map will have to be patrolled sooner or later, so any one choice was as good as another.

Archer put on his serious face as he trailed his master down the streets, heading in a zigzag towards south and west. Although gangs have not yet started to terrorize these slums so early in the night, the shuttles have long stopped at this time of the day, not wanting to take any chances. As they walked in the quiet darkness, Ervin raised the question of whether they could use Archer's flying ability to some advantage. But the servant explained that it was just a levitating leap, accomplished by temporarily making his body lighter. Carrying Ervin in the air would relegate the leap to a long vault, and expend more energy. There were other good reasons too, but Ervin's mind wasn't focused enough to absorb any more than a passing understanding of what Archer has said.

Ervin's mind was instead set on the dark streets around him. As an intermediate level mage, he was occasionally sensitive to the magical presence of others around him when the background was sufficiently calm. He should clearly feel the presence of his servant in the quiet night, but somehow the aura felt muddled. Ervin couldn't say where the background interference was coming from, for it felt like some kind of loose 'presence' smeared into the dim background in every direction. To a novice mage or a common sensitive soul, this would give off the vibes that there was something of substance lurking in every shadow all around.

"Do you feel that?" Ervin turned around to ask Archer in a hushed tone. The servant did not give his answer, save stiffen slightly in a subdued alarm. "I don't sense anything around us." Archer replied in a matching tone of caution. "But there very well could be something lurking."

"Let's move along then. I'll keep my eyes open." Ervin couldn't imagine anything that could surprise Archer; if the orange-haired servant didn't detect anything definite, then Ervin himself had no reason to let paranoia disperse his focus. Every step along the way, he gripped his sword in his right hand and kept his gun in his left, squeezing their handles to relive himself of the absurd illusion that the very stuff of the night was diffusing in his direction from every side.

The trip to the cathedral took a little under two hours. When they arrived below its stone steps, Ervin felt nothing but a quiet, stagnant deadness in the air. The holy shrine has long lost its upkeep, and the only ones who cared for it were the sanctioned pilgrims from the Holy Church and the few thousand faithfuls around the city that came to pray every week. For now though, no sounds came from either its interior or its premise. The surrounding streets did not even exhibit any distant noises of gang violence, which should have been commonplace in this part of the city a few hours after dark. Having become more suspicious of the dead streets rather than the cathedral itself, Ervin scouted the area in a block-long radius, with Archer following closely behind to scour every corner with his reinforced vision. But by the time they returned to the front face of the cathedral, they have found nothing.

"Inside." Ervin's suggestion came in a loud whisper, and Archer acknowledged him by taking point up ahead. As Ervin went on behind his servant, he managed to put a lid on his apprehension over the eerie streets. He reminded himself that looking inside the cathedral was actually more important than searching its premise, as any master who tries to sacrifice this holy monument to the Root would likely begin desecrating it from within. As they made their way beyond the open entrance door that has long been without a working lock, Ervin felt as though an active silence reverberated in the halls. Archer has put Ervin into the lead to make sure he could see his master at all times, and Ervin felt a boost of courage as he no longer had the urge to look over his back. With the dim night light shining through the stained glass acting as their only guide, master and servant treated the building as a maze, keeping their left hands on the wall as they scanned the seats and aisles.

There was no hint of anyone inside. No evidence that anyone might have just recently left. There were no smashed benches, broken podiums, defiled altars, ritual remnants, or any other tell-tale signs of things having gone amiss. For Ervin, the feeling of the darkness and silence reaching out at him gradually faded away, and the grip on his sword loosened. He put his gun into a pocket on his long coat, and stretched the sore tendons in his left hand. He was back at the cathedral's entrance now, getting ready to leave. He turned around to the servant behind him, and stated the obvious.

"Looks like there's nothing here."

A crushing feeling rose in Ervin's chest when he didn't see Archer behind him. He drew his sword, turned around and back, and cycled his suddenly-sharpened gaze through random corners where an enemy might lurk. Only then did he see that the red-clad swordsman has simply been sitting down on the nearest seat, slightly beyond the reach of the dim ambient light. Archer sprung up at Ervin's sudden panic and leapt to his side protectively, his swords Kanshou and Byakuya instantly traced in his hands. The drastic move briefly caused Ervin to panic more, before he realized that there was absolutely no threat around save his own sudden paranoia.

"It's all right, Archer. False alarm."

"I see. I must have been out of sight." Although the servant was too cool to say sorry, his tone was apologetic.

"No, worries, my fault." Ervin assured the lanky servant as they walked outside and down the stone stairs. "Sorry mate, for cutting into your, uh, meditation." Ervin was going to use the word 'breather,' but thought that the cool, serious veteran might take offence to being accused of resting while on a mission. Not that Ervin really thought of it as slacking off; the sword master must have long figured out that the place was harmless, but reserved his comment simply to train Ervin's combat awareness. If anything, Ervin felt bad that by confusingly acting up in the end, he has failed his mentor's test and let him down.

"Meditation, huh?" The swordsman allowed himself a chuckle. "I actually did get carried away."

"Oh..." Ervin spent a few seconds searching the right words. "Something that could weight YOU down must be awfully heavy. I'll listen if you want to share."

"Never mind." Archer declined. "It's boring stuff, asking yourself the differences between leading a good life and having a good life. Things like that, nothing more."

"Philosophy, huh?" Ervin continued the conversation to assure his servant that it was always interesting to hear him talk. "I'm guessing you've led a good life, but didn't have a good life?"

"Quite the reverse." Archer replied candidly.

Ervin thought about it for a bit before giving a nod of understanding. He decided that it was more cool if he just stopped asking, and respect his servant for whatever portion of himself he decides to let on. After all, Ervin has already inadvertently pried into many clips of his servant's past Grail Wars, and he felt that the cool sword master deserved to be able to keep the details of his own mortal life, his last bit of privacy, completely to himself.

The returning patrol route eastwards towards the Tower of London was uneventful. They fought off wandering thugs once, and stayed in place for half an hour in hopes of drawing out Rider, whose master might be directing the gangsters, but no one showed up. When Ervin continued towards the Tower, he started to feel the ambient presence once more. He could not rid himself of the feeling that the silent, empty darkness on the edge of his vision was reaching out at him. He semi-consciously walked ahead in front of Archer, so that the trusty servant could watch his back.

Suddenly, he heard a sharp ring in his ear, a pure tone that was as melodic as it was piercingly painful. Blood pumped in his circuits and his eyes widened. Startled, he halted in his tracks and looked around. There was nothing.

"Ervin, Are you sensing something in the air again?"

"Sorry, mate." Ervin shook his head apologetically. "I know I'm being awfully nervous."

"No, trust your senses, and be alert. I wouldn't be surprised if there IS something around us." As if to encourage Ervin to trust his own senses, Archer traced his weapons and held them ready, showing that he was taking his master fully seriously. Ervin nodded and pressed on. They made their way along the north bank, passing the tea shop before arriving at the Tower of London. The came to a stop before the castle's wet moat. Instead of going to the drawbridge and taking the long way inside, Archer opted to simply carry Ervin and vault for a short distance onto the nearest watch tower that rose above the castle's battlements. Although their vantage point wasn't built very high by modern standards, the watch tower nevertheless gave them a good view of the surrounding area.

Scattered lights, both bright and dim, sparsely dotted the lands beyond the south bank. Nothing looked out of the ordinary at first, until Archer noticed that one patch of the south bank was completely devoid of lights. Following the servant's pointing finger, Ervin realized that a piece of the picture before him was horribly wrong. The place Archer had pointed to wasn't just devoid of lights; it was as though no light escaped from it. Even if a district had a blackout, stray lighting from nearby areas should at least illuminate a rough outline of the district's buildings. But at it was, the section of the city across from the river was a complete patch of black, as though covered by a layer of thick, in-diffusible fog.

"That's where the Belfast is!" Ervin exclaimed in alarm. "Some master must be sacrificing that old ship to the Root."

"I doubt that a mere ship can disturb the memories of a hero on the Throne." Even though Archer was sceptical, he readied himself for action. "But in any case, it's still a good idea to investigate."

"Right." Ervin re-oriented himself after Archer glided with him back down to the ground. "There are two ways to the Belfast from here. Tower Bridge or London Bridge. I'd choose the latter because London Bridge is also another place on our investigation list, which we can briefly scout on our way there."

"As you wish, master. Let's move." In a time when decisiveness was the most important, Archer followed his master's orders without question. Quickly moving westwards along the north bank, they arrived at the north side of London Bridge in less than fifteen minutes. As he moved along, Ervin felt that the darkness in the air was growing thicker. He steeled himself and narrowed his focus forward as he began to cross over the river. Whatever was on the other side, he would face it. If he was to fulfill his wish, then the only way for him was to move ahead...

"MASTER! WATCH OUT!" Archer jumped ahead to block the incoming arrows. They came from atop one of the bridge towers, and Ervin wasn't fast enough to see them as his gaze was cast down and ahead.

The howling sound of the missiles registered in Ervin's head far too late for the single-minded young man to react. As an arrow pierced him through the waist, dizziness and shock preceded the sharp pain in his side. His breaths came in short gasps, and the sounds of screaming arrows and parrying blades liquefied to a blur in his muddling awareness.

He fell to the ground, and he tried to lift his head to keep himself from passing out. He thought he saw a red-haired lady in silver armour pass by in the distance; but his shocked brain could no longer make sense of what he saw. Ervin's endurance has given out, and the world faded from his awareness.

***Scene Break***

Ervin woke up a familiar room. He took a while to orient himself, and recognized that this was the house he stayed in at the first week of the war, before they moved north after confronting Rider and Saber for the first time. He saw Archer sleeping tightly on the floor a few yards away, and the dark circles beneath the servant's eyes betrayed his exhaustion. Ervin wanted to make him take the couch, but decided not to disturb his sleep. He saw daylight seeping through the curtains, but didn't bother to check the time. He went for a cold shower; as his mind fully woke itself Ervin pieced together what must have happened since last night. He was gravely wounded on the bridge, and Archer must has brought him back here, to the nearest safe house. As he felt no injury in his body beyond a terrible exhaustion and some muscle pain, the servant must have brought him back from the brink by tracing Asclepius, the staff of healing. Such an unfairly powerful item no doubt had its drawback, and Ervin could already guess what it was. Archer gathers the prana for his projections from his own life energy, or od. The Rod of Asclepius, being such a powerful tide-turning item, likely costs the swordsman mage a whopping amount of od to project. Ervin wasn't sure if Archer could actually recover that lost energy before the next battle, and he wasn't eager to know the answer.

For now on his own, he fetched himself a change of clothes and stepped outside into the light grey afternoon streets. A passing of the autumn breeze made Ervin slightly restless, and he decided on a whim to take a long walk. He dressed himself in a simple sweater and a neat pair of jeans, not wanting Rider or Berserker's masters to recognize him by his embellished blue trench coat in case they lurked around. Leaving a note to Archer that he's gone for a walk around the tea shop area, Ervin left the house without his sword, carrying only his battle mage pistol in a large left pocket on the underside of his custom sweater. After a leisurely walk to the station, Ervin boarded a shuttle that took him into the city.

Staring blankly through the familiar streets and buildings that passed by him, Ervin sunk into his own thoughts. He wondered how Elise was doing, now that her little brother wasn't around to help her with those routine errands from the Association. Maybe she was relieved that her little troublemaker would be gone for awhile. Or perhaps to the contrary she was even more stressed out, knowing said brother was getting into trouble and not knowing how severe, thus fearing for the worst.

I'm going to win the Grail so Elise can live happily, Ervin promised himself. She has always provided everything for him; now he was going to provide her with something in return.

Then inadvertently his thoughts wandered to Brigit. What did she want from the Grail? Could their wishes somehow both be granted?

Ervin blinked and shook his head lightly to clear his mind when he went off the shuttle at the Tower of London. Making the Kokutou Tea Shop his first stop, he had hoped to see through the window whether Brigit was buying sandwiches for her servant again. But he found the now-broken front windows covered in taped cardboard, making it impossible to see inside. Ervin went in to order a drink on the go, as he meanwhile scanned the inside of the small restaurant. There was no Brigit; in fact the store was completely empty. The only other person present was lone waiter, none other than the cheerful young man who seemed to be the store's most enthusiastic card.

"Welcome back, sir, how can I help you today?" The waiter greeted Ervin from behind the counter. His tone was rather subdued, which actually made him sound more kind and authentic than usual.

"Large iced milk tea, for here." Ervin seated himself at the counter. The sudden busting of the shop seemed suspicious, and Ervin wanted to investigate. What if Saber has killed people here? If so how was Brigit involved? Ervin had to try and get to the bottom of it, so that the pessimistic side of his imagination wouldn't continue to eat at him with speculations. As Ervin watched the waiter mix his drink, he thought about how best to start a conversation the moment he hands over the hefty beverage glass. The drink didn't take long to prepare. As the waiter came with the filled glass, Ervin decided to forget the smoother ways of starting a conversation in favour of the blunt and direct.

Ervin accepted the drink with a light nod of thanks. "Uh, excuse me." He asked. "Can I ask you what's happened to the shop? It seems a bit roughed up."

"Gangs." The waiter sounded more grim than resigned. "There was a deadly brawl in front of my store. Killed about a dozen people."

"Oh dear." Ervin tried to act surprised and clueless, but secretly guessed that Rider's master must have had a hand in it. Having nearly been killed by Rider last night on the nearby bridge, Ervin knew for sure that the dangerous servant and his gangster master do not even have a valid alibi. "A shame that most of the customers must have been scared away by the news." Ervin remarked, milking the dialogue in hopes of finding some extra leads. "But I'm glad that they didn't manage to trash the store's interior."

"Right." The waiter seemed to be sliding something under his counter. In a moment he came forward with two bowels of strawberry ice cream. He handed one bowl to Ervin, and sat down with the other bowl at a diagonal seat across the table.

"Oh, for me?"

"Aye, it's on the house." The waited was unusually sober now, completely unlike the enthusiastic young man going briskly from table to table in a lively shop.

"Why, you're actually the owner, aren't you?" Ervin was every bit as surprised as he let on. It was just that this fellow's usual demeanour carried so little authority, that Ervin himself could never have guessed his place in the shop's management. That aside, Ervin was quite impressed that that someone as young as himself could not only run a store, but do so while doubling over as a server in the forefront.

"Yeah. I'm Nozumu Kokutou, owner of the shop."

"Ervin Cambrian." Ervin shook Nozumu's hand over the table.

"My pleasure." Nozumu dipped his head in a reserved yet slightly exaggerated nod. "Do you have time for a free meal here? You'll probably be one of my last customers."

"Oh, come on, mate, there's no way you're closing down the store?" Ervin totally did not want the shop to go under; for one his own stomach would not endorse it.

But the young owner simply shook his head. "The coalition police cracked down on the district in the morning, but it just ended up creating a bigger scare for the people who usually come here. The violence didn't just scare away my customers. They scared away my chef and most of my employees. In two months I won't even be able to pay my land lease."

"I see..." Ervin's mind suddenly spawned an idea on a whim. Up until now Elise has been taking care of his finances, so wouldn't it be great if he scores a job of his own and start to send money home to his sister? This was a good chance for him, and he wasn't going to let it pass. Better yet, the shop could serve as an extra safe house if need be. On top of that, as if that wasn't reason enough, his very own servant was an excellent cook! "Hey Nozumu, I've got an idea." Ervin put his theory into practice without thought. "How about I-"

"No point." Nozumu appeared slightly moody as he cut Ervin off. "I don't mean to offend, but I don't want to run a business that supports a mage war."

Ervin's jaw dropped. How did this man know of magecraft? How did he know that I'm a mage? How did he know that I'm fighting for the Grail? Questions flooded Ervin's mind, and he couldn't sort out which one to ask first. Instead of trying to glean the shop owner piecewise, Ervin mastered himself and asked the sum of all his questions directly at the opposing character.

"How much do you know?"

Nozumu Kokutou didn't answer right away. Even as Ervin stared back, he caught a subtle glare in the shop owner's piercing sharp eyes. It was a fleeting, teal flash that his tinted glasses couldn't completely conceal, though it would have slipped by a common man or even a novice mage who hasn't read up on what this class of ability really was.

"Mystic eyes." Ervin pressed on with an intellectual show of force, proving to Nozumu that he wasn't the only one who knew something about his opponent. "I know you're a mage, Nozumu. Now as a fellow practitioner, if there are aspects of me that offend you, do let me know what they are, if you would please."

Nozumu's eyes relaxed as he looked away. "Don't get steamed, Ervin. I don't want to fight anyone, especially not someone like you. But there are things in life that we have to protect, and for me that means I can't let you wage a mage war over my turf, shop or no shop."

"A pacifist." Ervin nodded in understanding. "I respect that. I don't wish to butt heads with you either. I just want a chance to get a real job here; and if you want, I won't do any fighting in the store, and I won't involve you in any quarrels or conflicts." Seeing Nozumu was actually listening and giving him some consideration, Ervin played his trump card. "If you hire me, I'll get you a good cook. How's that?"

"Tempting." Nozumu pondered a bit. "But if I hire you, there is one bottom line. If you threaten to involve me in your war, you'll be out in a snap."

"All right, all right. I'm just trying to keep my favourite snack bar in business. We've got a deal then?"

"Hmm, all right, I'll pencil it in." The owner swallowed a spoonful of ice cream. "Let's have you start tomorrow. I'll pay you by the hour and give you flexible shifts so you can ply your other trade, as long as you log me a good thirty hours per week. How's that sound?"

"You're the boss."

They shook hands a second time. Ervin was dead set on working in this place; Nozumu Kokutou clearly knew a great deal of secrets, and Ervin wanted the chance to glean as much as he could. He wasn't sure if Nozumu's motives were as simple as they appeared; it was after all a job posting, an interview, plus an offer, every part unplanned, all in the course of an hour. It all seemed suspiciously easy. Nevertheless, Ervin resolved to go ahead with his plans, to see what would happen. Meanwhile Nozumu has promised him a free meal, and Ervin made good on it. If anything, it gave Ervin more of a chance to talk some knowledge out of his enigmatic employer. Such opportunities would actually be difficult once he starts to work, since talking about magecraft in front of customers would be a sure first step in breaking his promise of keeping the mage war out of the shop.

Ervin offered to help Nozumu prepare the food in the kitchen behind the dining hall. Like most restaurants, the kitchen door was close to the counter, at the far back end of the guests' dining area. An employee, especially a manager behind the counter, could easily spot any guests that would trespass into the kitchen. As such, Ervin wondered if the young owner had anything to hide in the back rooms beyond that door. If Nozumu turned down his help, it likely meant that there were things behind there that Ervin shouldn't pry into. For the most part though, Ervin didn't ask it with cunning intentions; he simply wanted to gauge whether Archer should be extra careful if and when he became the cook. Although on top of that, a small part of Ervin did believe that the more secrets Nozumu hid, the more shady and dangerous he likely was. Asking for access to the kitchen immediately, if nothing else, was Ervin's attempt to quell his own second-guessing of trusting the opposed character so easily.

"Sure." Nozumu answered readily. "You might as well start getting used to this kitchen today, since you'll be moving in and out of it quite a lot." Ervin took it as a sign that there were no skeletons in the cupboard after all; and indeed he found the kitchen to be quite a normal place. Several fridges stocked with unprepared food encircled the outer edge of the kitchen along with the stoves and ovens, while a slick counter with cutting boards running along the room's centre made a ring out of the walking space. Though useless with cooking, Ervin aptly helped out with fetching various ingredients from the storage compartments, and he had very little trouble with knowing where to look for things when given clear instructions. Within an hour, they've prepared a large meal for themselves consisting of sashimi, rolls, fried chicken nuggets, pork cutlets, and vegetable tempura. Ervin received his first practice at carrying filled plates; although his load per trip was slightly below average, steadying two plates in one arm was still well within the ability of his coordinated, training-hardened arm muscles. All in all, he thought that he could get used this. He thought of how he would be able to make money on his own, and help Elise make the ends meet. Briefly for the time being, as he munched on the food and chatted with his new boss over basic magecraft, the Holy Grail War was relegated to an afterthought.

After dinner, Ervin realized that he needed to go back and meet up with Archer. There was a chance that servant was already out looking for him; and with the note that Ervin has left behind Archer might be heading this way already. Still, it was dark outside already, and Ervin thought that it would be rather unkind of himself if he left his partner semi-passed-out in their safe house. After all he has bartered out Archer's cooking service without first consulting the servant, and the last thing Ervin wanted was to make someone who qualified as a friend feel used. All in all, Ervin thought it best to bid the owner goodbye for the day.

"Hey you know what?" Nozumu stopped Ervin when he asked to take his leave for the night. "Since you're already here, want to work the nightshift until morning? I doubt there'll be any customers at least for these few days, so it's an easy way for you to smooth in your work. What do you say?"

"Hmm." Ervin considered the offer. It sounded like a good idea, not the least because it gave him another opportunity to find out more about Nozumu Kokutou. Among other questions, Ervin was rather curious about how the store runs itself at night. If Nozumu was human, he almost definitely needed sleep. How then is he managing a 24/7 business?

But on second thought, he had to get back to Archer. The lanky fellow would probably be worried by now, and there was still a Holy Grail War that demanded their attention.

"Silly me." Nozumu excused Ervin's hesitation with a chuckle. "I forgot that you've other businesses to attend to at night. That's way outside of my jurisdiction, and I've got to keep it that way! So..." The young owner paused slightly for emphasis before finishing his sentence. "If you need to stalk the streets for enemies, or something of the like, I'd better set you loose for the day, preferably far away from here."

"Uh, well, your suggestion was good though, and I'm thinking it over." Inside Ervin's head, Nozumu's words reminded him of another possibility. He could patrol the streets at night on his own for a bit. It was after dark now, and he recalled that there was a dark zone across the river that he wanted to investigate as soon as possible. If Rider camped on one bridge, Ervin could go across on another. While he's out in the streets, it would be easier for Archer to feel his presence and quickly come to his side. All in all the zone around Belfast felt somewhat significant to this war, and perhaps the patrol run over to that district shouldn't suffer any more delays.

Ervin had three choices now. He could stay for the night shift, head back east for Archer, or investigate the area around the Belfast without delay. He has already given every option some consideration, and once again the decision came down to his instinct.


	9. Fate: Into the Night II

Author's Note: posted the stats of another servant, at the end of this chapter.

***Story Begins Here***

"Sorry Nozumu, I'll run your night shifts some other time."

Ervin's mind was made up. Maybe Archer was right; maybe the monument ship never contained the memory of anyone on the Throne of Heroes. But even if the ship became some master's meaningless sacrifice, it was a chance for Ervin to study another opponent, and he felt it unwise to let the chance slip by. The kilometre-wide blackness across the river felt like the source of the pervasive darkness that tainted the evening streets, and Ervin wanted a chance to observe this magic up close. It might be dangerous, but he told himself that his war cannot be won by cowering from every ominous apparition he sees.

Nozumu Kokutou only gave a silent nod as his goodbye when Ervin went out into the streets. The streetlamps in these inner city districts should have been ample, but tonight it seemed as though their light failed to pierce even the shallowest of corners. It was as if the evening air's permeability to light has visibly dropped; but the abnormality had an elusive feel, for Ervin's normal sharpness of vision somehow wasn't impaired. The darkened city streets hasn't completely emptied yet; there was still plenty of time for the common folks still wandering about to go home before the first wave of nightly gangs hit, and knowing this those civilians took leisurely strolls. The lack of solitude has dampened Ervin's paranoid awareness, but he did not miss the unfittingly placid looks on their faces as he made his way towards Tower Bridge. No one seemed to notice that the world was unusually dim, even for the evening. Was he the only one aware, or was he the only one in the dark? He took a good look down the length of Tower Bridge before crossing it, to be as sure as he could that there were no ambushers waiting for him. He walked across while keeping his eyes southwest towards the patch of black where a district should be, and gripped his pistol to steady his shaking nerves as he continued on.

He did not catch on for a while, but when he decided to take in his surroundings again he saw that there were no more common folks in sight. Ervin was alone now, and the blackened zone should just be a block ahead. He peered down the westward street that led towards the Belfast, and sure enough an unclear blackness some distance ahead capped his visibility to a dead stop.

Ervin gathered his courage, and headed for the opaque wall.

***Scene Break***

_I may be a spirit, but I have a body in the here and now, and that body ached and complained when I got up from the ground. First there was the sore neck from sleeping without a proper headrest, and then there was the numb arm for supporting the weight of my head and losing circulation. You'd think that being a powerful servant, I'd be exempt from these mundane penalties, but by the Root, it was not to be._

_Not that I mind, though. For these small assailing discomforts fleshed out the illusion of being alive. For the length of this war, for most intents and purposes, I could be considered a powerful mortal, and nothing more. I even had choices to make, complete with illusions of responsibility to push me onward. It wasn't bad at all, since I'm of the type who often welcomed such things with open arms._

_Even though I felt meditative, I spent barely a second on these thoughts. My master have gone out and failed to return, leaving me with only a note of his rough whereabouts. It was imperative that I return to Ervin's side at once to ensure the boy's safety, for he was far too green to stand a chance against anything remotely extraordinary in these evening streets. I left for the tea shop at once. With no key on hand I simply dematerialized through the closed door, and quickly went on my way._

_Of course, dematerializing was for the most part a 'spirit thing.' And so it remained the truth that my mortal life has long ceased to be. The promises of what it held in store for me has long been reaped clean, and meaning has since died with it. All that I had now were extensions of my singular purpose as a guardian spirit, repeatedly sold to magi by the Root as weapons of war. My history and my past can only be correctly thought of as a part of the bundled properties of a summoned familiar. Fond memories increased my resolve when they were recalled, and qualms impeded my focus when they surfaced. As such, battle is all that I am._

_These meditative self-reminders have become routine for me, and it was my way to sharpen my focus. I reinforced my body with improved strength and decreased mass as I vaulted and glided silently over the desolate slum neighbourhoods, paying no attention to pockets of wanton gang violence now that my master wasn't here. I reinforced my eyes for sharper night vision as I neared the Tower Bridge, having felt that my master's presence was for better or worse nearby. I saw him then, recklessly making his way towards The Belfast in nearly complete darkness, not even pausing to look to the side. I dived in quickly to join up with him, before he could completely disappear under the fog._

***Scene Break***

Ervin made his way towards the darkness. Somehow it was farther away than it seemed, for the pitch black nothing still seemed to be two blocks away. But the world was really dark now, with streetlights looking like hung candles. He was thinking how he must be getting close, when a slick figure fell from the sky. Ervin tensed and drew his gun, before realizing that it was Archer.

"Master." Archer's voice was one of simple acknowledgement with no undertones, a testament to his combat professionalism when pressing matters were at hand. He was here to protect Ervin, and would follow orders without question and offer opinions only when asked. "Sorry for the leave." Ervin apologized outright. "I volunteered us for jobs at the tea shop. I'll fill you in on everything later."

Archer ignored the chitchat and continued to observe the surroundings. The swordsman was all business as he asked his pertinent questions. "What are you orders now, master? Shall we head to the Belfast?"

"Yes, we shall." Ervin took the hint from the servant and refocused himself. "We also have to approach the black zone up ahead for a closer look."

"Do you not realize you've already gone inside it?" Archer's words chilled Ervin slightly. But of course, he realized, that was why complete darkness always seemed to be at some distance. The blackness that swallows this district at night acted like some kind of fog, and did not have clear boundaries. In chasing the shadow's illusory edge, Ervin has gone deeper and deeper into its domain. Still, he intended to enter the darkness anyway, so Ervin steeled himself and moved on, staying close to his servant's side as they made their way towards the historical museum ship.

They stayed wary of every small fork and alley along their path, with Archer probing each street corner for ambushes before moving on. Ervin's suspense continued to build as cover after cover turned up empty, and when he felt that he has kicked something soft beneath his feet, he nearly jumped and cried out. Sure enough, he has stumbled upon a beaten corpse, whose features have been obscured by the smothering darkness. Ervin had no heart to find out just how mangled the body was, and instead tried to keep his focus on the task at hand. He followed his servant forward, and resisted the urge to stop and look down at every step. When they finally reached the battleship moored on the bank, Ervin was expecting to finally see face-to-face with whoever was upkeeping the bounded magic zone. But in the coalescing darkness Ervin was having trouble seeing past his own nose. Archer has become his only lifeline, who led Ervin on with his reinforced night vision.

"I'm blind over here, mate." Ervin told his servant quietly. "Do you see anything?"

"No, but I think I heard some sound coming from inside the ship. I believe the vessel is not empty."

Ervin drew a deep breath as he strained his eyes at the ominous outline of the century-old battleship. Whoever the master inside the ship was, he or she has chosen the interiors of the ship itself as the battle arena. Taking the fight to the opponent now meant walking into a maze that could feature the inevitable ambush inside any cabin, under any table or bed, and on any level of the deck. Ervin wondered if there was a point in playing the enemy's game at all, because Archer might be strong enough to simply sink the entire ship and smoke the hidden master onto the bank. Not completely sure what to do, Ervin turned to his servant for guidance. "What do you suggest, Archer? Do we explore the ship, or sink it?"

"I could sink it." Archer hinted his own preference clearly. "I doubt this particular monument bears any connection to the Grail, so there would be no consequence in sinking it beyond drawing out whatever that's hiding inside. However, we can't be sure about who is actually within. Rather than a mage or a servant, it might be someone completely unrelated. While I have no problems with that, you might."

"You're right. I wouldn't want that. Let's take a look inside." Ervin already began walking down the ramping steel walkway that led from the bank to the ship's top deck. Archer followed closely behind, stepping onto the large ship right after Ervin, whose boots tapped the deck noisily as soon as he left the walkway carpet. Ervin froze after realizing his own blunder, but Archer signalled him to keep moving. Silently now, they moved along the starboard side and came to their first door. Ervin gave the sliding door a slow sideways tug, but it did not give.

"It's locked." Ervin whispered. "Should we break it open?"

"That would likely trigger an alarm." Archer was prudent but did not shy away from the use of force. "It would alert anyone hiding on board of our intentions, but it might also draw them out into the open."

Ervin pondered for a full minute before deciding what to do. "We'll save the lock breaking for later. Let's first scout as much of the ship as possible without setting anything off." The servant dutifully complied and led the way around to the port side through the stern. He suddenly stopped at the side of the decked forecabin, causing Ervin to crash into him. When Archer held out a hand to signal Ervin to not continue forward, the young master guessed that opponents have been spotted ahead. His servant's lanky frame obscured his forward vision, so he moved his head to the side and tried to look ahead. The unnatural darkness made a chore out of every gaze he threw beyond a metre away, so he opened his mouth to quietly ask the servant what lay ahead.

"Ar-" But as soon as Ervin made the first sound, Archer raised his hand in a curt gesture to signal for absolute silence. Ervin was left in the dark in more ways than one, but he read the seriousness in his servant's posture. Understanding that he was not to make any noise, Ervin strained his eyes through the fog in an attempt to make out what was happening. Archer gestured left towards the cabin wall, and Ervin's inadequate vision followed his servant's hand. After some squinting and a bit of guesswork and imagination, Ervin realized that there was a man-sized hole neatly torn in the cabin's side. Presumably an enemy hiding inside the cabin would be able to detect and ambush hapless trespassers who wandered too close to the opening, and it seemed that Archer has halted just before the angle at which such things could occur. The lanky swordsman turned to Ervin now, waiting for him to understand the situation and a give fitting order. The subtleties of Archer's mimed inquisitive expressions were lost in the dark, but Ervin understood that he now had to decide his course of action again. They couldn't risk conversing lest an enemy overhears, so even with Archer was right by his side Ervin was more or less on his own in deciding what to do next.

Ervin pointed to Archer, did a shielding motion, and pointed towards the doorway-sized hole ripped in the metal cabin walls. He meant to ask the servant to go in and assume a defensive stance, although when Archer went right on ahead Ervin did not know how much of what he tried to say went through. He followed the servant through the hole into the decked forecabin that lead up to the bridge. Ervin was about to make a hopeless attempt to probe the pitch blackness around him when his world exploded in a searing brightness. The sudden onset of light was such a violent departure from the lightless world a second ago, that as Ervin's eyelids squeezed shut he thought that his eyes were bleeding. Light continued to shine through his closed eyelids as his facial muscles reactively tried to squint even more. Ervin was stunned, and a push from a strong arm sent him crashing to the floor. Desperately, he tried to force his eyes open to see what was happening.

"Trace, on!" Archer's Rho Aias has already blocked the first of the enemy's attacks. Like his master, he too was blinded briefly by the switched lights, but the veteran instinctively projected his shield for a block that required no sight or precision. Simultaneously the servant traced a pair of steel-framed sunglasses and threw them at Ervin. The blinded blonde was too stunned to recognize the tool through his rapidly opening and closing eyes, so Archer had to use words to snap him to his senses.

"Master! Wear those glasses and assume your stance!"

The words went through to Ervin's baffled instincts. He did as he was told, and not a moment too soon. The familiar command of "Berserker, kill the master" rang from the stairway leading up to the bridge, as the robotic beauty suddenly disregarded Archer completely and shot straight for Ervin. Ervin's vision still swam after his put his glasses on, his eyelids cowering before the lights in the room, but he saw berserker's approach. Archer was still reining in his body's momentum after the vicious girl ignored his direct hit, and the position of their bodies gave berserker a tiny head start. The time scale of her approach was in tenths of seconds, but with a two-week crash course under his belt, Ervin was just quick enough to react. He rolled to the side, and by luck Berserker's deadly slash went in a direction that failed to kill him in light of his movements. Ervin did not waste energy in repressing his painful howl as a bladed fist scored a deep gash between his shoulders, just below the back of his neck. Adrenaline, panic, pain, and his gradually contracting emerald pupils added a little extra to his awareness, and he managed to fully dodge Berserker's delayed follow-up as he returned to Archer's side, keeping the orange-haired servant between the girl and himself. Ervin drew his gun, but recalled from their previous encounter that she seemed rather impervious to missile attacks. The thought of targeting her master crossed his mind quickly, but he stamped it out, in light of his promise to minimize the war's casualties. He was about to wonder whether it was possible to spare the fair Berserker as well, but he was clear-headed enough to put a clamp on his naive fancies. At the very least, if he had to survive, then he had to hurt her and incapacitate her. To do that, he needed a weapon. Unlike his enemy, Ervin vowed to take responsibility for his own war, so he could not let his own servant fight alone.

"Archer. Give me a sword." A week ago Archer has pinpointed Ervin's need for a more suitable weapon. Now with his own sword left behind, it seemed the perfect occasion for the servant to produce such a weapon on demand. Meanwhile Berserker redoubled her relentless assault, keeping Archer busy as she sought a way to burst through the orange-haired servant's defence and get at Ervin. Ervin himself has taken out his mage pistol, and fired his ineffective shots that did little to slow down the blade-fisted fury.

Then, without warning, Berserker's master made his move. He began a silent incantation that only became obvious after Ervin felt his prana being slowly leeched out from him. "Archer!" Ervin asked a second time as his servant continued to cross blades with Berserker. Archer drew back slightly, and complied to the implicit order. Even though he felt it clear that Ervin would not contribute much and will end up endangering himself, an order was an order. In the seconds-long pause before Berserker closed in the distance he put out, Archer made the best of his order and readied a weapon that he thought would best fit Ervin's fighting style. It was doubtful that Ervin could make full use of what he prepared; but the master wanted the best weapon for his style, and Archer would not disappoint him.

"Trace...on."

Ervin almost spaced out in shock when Archer projected Saber's runic dark blade, Nightmare. A dull, disgruntled hum buzzed about the runic weapon, and as Archer held it the lifeless noise seemed to growl with dissatisfaction. Ervin was slightly taken aback by the sword for a myriad of reasons; but as Archer turned back to hold Berserker at bay, and as the pressure from the other master's prana drain continued to mount, Ervin knew that he had to grab the sword and hold his own. He himself has asked for this strategy, and Archer has obediently accommodated him. He was surprised and thrilled that he would get to use such a seemingly powerful artefact, as he has seen first hand what it could accomplish. Without further doubt, he took the grumbling weapon in his hands. Unexpectedly, the noises it made ceased completely.

The sword was heavy but wieldable, and Ervin felt a great deal of power sitting in his hands. Even as he took his first step Ervin saw that Archer has chosen his weapon well. The length and weight of the weapon were perfectly fitted to his size, strength, and posture. Wasting no more time, he charged the channelling master who threatened to leech mana from the combatants. He mentally caught himself midway, and remembered that he was not supposed to kill other masters. Suddenly unsure of what to do with his weapon, he clumsily swung the runeblade on its flat side, making a blunting attack at the other master's midsection. The prana drainer saw him coming, and moved smoothly out of the way.

"Not good enough." The opposing master's voice was low, but hinted the instability of a psychopath. It was hard to tell whether the he understood Ervin's dilemma, but he did take full advantage of Ervin's reservation. He made little effort to dodge subsequent attacks, and even closed his eyes without moving when Ervin thrust the runeblade at his face. Ervin held back at the last second, not realizing that the opposing mage was actually casting rather than giving in. While Ervin was thrown off, the drainer opened his eyes and raised his hands above his shoulders, slowly clenching them into claws. As he did so Ervin felt a sudden sap, as though energy was leaking out of every joint in his body. Ervin nearly dropped his heavy sword as the forces that kept his arms raised escaped from his elbows; then a vicious kick sent Ervin to the crashing back down the stairs. His training as a fighter-type mage, plus the two week's worth of lessons from Archer, was enough for Ervin to adjust his downward tumble so that he didn't land headfirst or break his neck; but his entire frame took a beating from the fall, marked by sprains, scrapes and bruises. The sunglasses fell off his face, but fortunately his eyes have become accustomed to the light.

Archer leapt backwards to where Ervin lay, to guard him from both the opposing master and the opposing servant. Even as the red-cloaked servant glided through the air, Ervin heard an incantation from him that has never been recited before.

"I am the bone of my sword."

Ervin has never seen Archer project and fire his bow and sword so fast, that the entire motion was done before his feet even touched back down. As Caladbolg II, his projected drill-shaped sword, whipped through the air and impacted Berserker with an explosion, Ervin felt the heat of ignited prana radiating out of Archer's bow-hand sleeve. Before Ervin could re-orient himself and restrain his servant, Archer traced a handful of simple arrows and fired them at the opposing master. Even then, Berserker dashed out from the clearing smoke surrounding her and blocked the missiles for her master. As Ervin re-focused himself he realized that not all the missiles were glancing off her embellished armour, but rather on a bubble of invisible energy in the air around her. Nevertheless, Archer's broken phantasm attack has at least penetrated her shield with shrapnel, as her armour was clearly ripped at places and the revealed flesh wounds bled a great deal.

"Heh." Berserker's shaken master let out a light, deranged chuckle. "Berserker has the perfect answer to both your dark bounded zone and your ranged attacks. Isn't she wonderful?" His vision bounced back and fourth between Ervin, Archer, and Berserker as he continued to speak. "Come, then. We'll face you together, Berserker and I."

"Wait, hold on!" Ervin wanted to avoid a team melee where a master could get killed, and he saw a chance to at least put off the confrontation. "We're not responsible for the darkness covering this district. We're just here to investigate it, because it looks dangerous and troubling. Both you and I and within the influence of this looming thing that we don't understand, this isn't the time for us to fight each other!"

Berserker's master dismissed Ervin's offer with a wave of his hand. "Naive fool. The Holy Grail frowns upon alliances, however temporary." He gestured at his servant with a hand, and the thin, armoured woman stepped forward with a noisy, savage exhalation, ready to fight once again.

Archer made a barely audible grunt from the side, and brandished his twin swords. But Ervin restrained him with a light nudge of the arm and a slight shake of the head. Turning to the opposing master, Ervin made one last attempt to avoid being forced to go for his throat. "Listen, mate. Whatever's casting that shadow out there has got to be stronger that we are. If we weaken each other here, neither one of us will stand a chance in making it out of this fog."

"You have no idea what you are talking about." The red-haired master retorted coldly. "Berserker is perfectly equipped to handle both you and whatever thing that's making the shadow outside. Did you not realize that a projected weapon that would have killed an average servant at range barely managed to scratch her? This ability to negate ranged attacks is the 'Shroud of Broken Will,' the first of her Noble Phantasms. Thus my servant can only be fought up close, where you cannot possibly rival her strength or speed."

"And the second Noble Phantasm makes her stronger the longer she stays in combat." Archer cut in from the side, exposing the red-haired master's ploy. "That's is why you are talking now to stall for time."

"Hahahahahaha..." Berserker's master burst into a unstable laugh. "Precisely! Whenever she fights, her second Noble Phantasm, the 'Aten Sun Disc,' begins to take shape high above the battlefield. When fully formed, it burns like a miniature sun, its rays lending her incalculable power. Take a look at the light in this large room. Did you not notice that it does not come from any lamp? Let me tell that, even though you could bear the wrath of Berserker a minute ago, that feat is already beyond you now..." He caught himself mid-sentence before letting out another mad chuckle. "What, are you STILL WAITING?"

Ervin has become a bit nervous. He was wondering the same thing - if Archer saw through that master's scheme, why didn't he strike while he could? Ervin cringed at the thought that Archer was simply following his own misguided orders to hold back. Ervin made his best attempt to salvage the situation now: switch to aggressive and prepare an attack.

"You underestimate Archer." Ervin challenged his rival. "He will still make short work of you both!" As Ervin put fourth his bluff, he turned to look at Archer. To his surprise, the servant did not even trace his weapon, but put one hand on his waist and stretched his other hand downwards and to the side, in one of his typical lecture positions. "This room is getting dimmer by the minute." Archer remarked with a hint of mockery. "Is this how her power-up is supposed to be like?"

"What? You..." The red-haired master began to call on Archer's bluff, but then hung up mid-sentence.

"You could wait some more if you wish." Archer smiled wryly. "I don't want to hear defeated opponents complain that they haven't been given a fair chance."

"How...?" The young madman stared blankly ahead and muttered in disbelief.

It was now Archer's turn to give explanations, mostly to spray salt on the opponent's wound. "Even if the energy of her eventual state is enormous, her power-up can still have a slow start. In the presence of a darkness that is constantly absorbing the light from her Noble Phantasm, her technique will never get off the ground."

"ENOUGH! BERSERKER! KILL THEM ALL!" The redhead must have felt foolish, a fact which redoubled his rage. At his command Berserker lunged forward, and Archer traced swords to match her. Despite her special abilities being stifled, her speed and strength was still more than a match for Archer, and they traded minor wounds on each other over the course of a few minutes. Ervin watched from the sidelines, and kept himself outside the range of the other master's prana leeching. Even he noticed now that the light in the room was growing dim, and darkness was slowly eating into it. He felt that he had to put a stop to the fight at hand, and focus on the encroaching shadows. "Hey!" He called out to the room in loud enough of a shout to make the other master pause. "The shadow's onto us. We should save this fight for another time!" As if to reinforce the pressure of Ervin's offer, Archer scored a long gash along the waist of the weakened Berserker.

"Berserker, fall back." After a second of weighing the odds, the other master finally caved in. The thin woman skilfully back stepped towards her master without the use of any decoy moves, instead relying solely on the impact of clashing weapons to propel her body backwards. Archer allowed her to gain distance, and as both servants returned to their masters, the light in the room was completely snuffed out.

"Let's all get out here." Ervin declared, taking point ahead and moving out of the spacious cabin out onto the deck. He was nearly blind now and would have preferred the guidance of his servant's reinforced sight, but he decided to let Archer walk behind him to keep the other pair escapees in check, lest they decide for a backstab. They made their way off the ship and back onto the darkened south bank, paying no attention now to the loud clanking of their boots. When they reached the walkway that ran east-west along the bank, Berserker's master called them to a stop.

"It's better if we split up here. We won't have to worry about keeping each other in check."

"As you like." Ervin shrugged. He would have wanted the same thing himself, seeing how volatile and dangerous the other master was. But as Berserker and her master headed east, Ervin felt an urge to extend a token courtesy.

"My name's Ervin Cambrian. Guess I'll be seeing you some other time."

"Cambrian…?"

The redhead turned around briefly, perhaps weighing whether he should bother with an appropriate reply. Ervin had no idea how the cogs in that young man's head turned about; but for whatever reason, he did decide to give Ervin a fair exchange.

"Jacob Bathory." He left his name with a nod, before turning around and disappearing into the darkness.

***Scene Break***

Ervin followed Archer's acute vision in the near complete darkness. After tripping over several tossed bodies beneath his feet only to have more corpses break his falls, Ervin's mind swam with extrapolated images of what the streets beneath his feet would look like should they see the light of day, and his urge to vomit was purely held in check by his horror and fear. As he went on, moving away from the centre of the dark zone, the black fog faded and gave way to a regular midnight sky. Ervin feared that he would see a sea of carnage on the pavement beneath his feet, but to his relief the streets in front of him seemed quite clear. For better or worse though, he fought back the urge to look at what he has left behind.

The Chamber Orchestra building was up ahead. Ervin remembered all too well what has happened the night before. Rider was doubtlessly perched on the building's top, sniping down on unsuspecting victims. Any closer and Rider would no doubt sense their presence. Ervin would then have to face the howling arrows once again, that threaten to slay him even before he steps on the bridge.

"Archer. Should we confront Rider and cross the bridge?"

"We could take a detour via the Tower Bridge. But that means going back into the dark zone and possibly meeting Berserker again."

"Forget that." Ervin's mind was now made up. He's spent what felt like an eternity under that fog, with the streets inside dotted with bodies. Rather than gathering the stomach to turn back, it felt much easier to gather the guts to charge forward.

They were hiding behind the Old London Knee Clinic building now, out of sight at a mere three hundred meters away from Rider's vantage point. Once they broke cover, they only had the option of direct assault. Ervin knew full well that he himself would the weak link once their assault began. Rider would focus all his attacks on Ervin, and he would have no choice but to bear the ancient horse archer's hail of fury. Standing beside him against the wall, Archer appeared relaxed, and only his expressionless face showed his utter focus and readiness. He was ready to do whatever Ervin asks without question, unless he asked for advice.

Ervin did not. With the shadows behind his back and a deadly enemy ahead of him, Ervin forced himself to decisive action to put a lid on his own apprehension. He had the option of sitting back in cover and let Archer take the brunt of the hits in a forced assault, but Ervin did not want to tax Archer's energy reserves by exposing him to too much harm. Furthermore, should Rider's master be lurking nearby, the noble would surely flank his own position. Either way he would be stuck in combat, and Ervin was determined to make the best of it.

"Archer." Ervin issued his orders. "I will break cover first, and make for the building on the side of the street. Once Rider fires his first volley, you'll break cover and charge him while he is reloading."

"Master." Archer did not object to his master, but still felt obliged to make Ervin aware of some key tactical facts. "It is twenty metres to the other side, and it will take you fifteen seconds to cross over. Assuming he takes no more than three seconds to reload a volley, you will face five rounds of attacks, which will push your reaction and avoidance to their limit. At your current level of training, your agility is inadequate for such a feat."

"That's quite alright, mate. You'll put him down before his second volley comes off cool down."

Archer lingered for half a moment before understanding Ervin's gambit. Then he dismissed his favoured swords, decreasing his weight as his empty hands prepared much more potent projections at their fingertips. Fully concentrated now on the task ahead of him, Archer did not even waste energy to nod. A simple "understood" was all that he needed to say.

Ervin took a deep breath and steeled his nerves. He ran his dextral fingers over the back of his left hand, rubbing over the Grail's engravings of the Griffin, Shield, and Unicorn - three accursed marks placed by the Grail upon him to signify his rank of master. Those were his three command seals, each one allowing the master to make an absolute demand of his servant, and granting them a temporary boost in power to contribute in meeting that demand. Pressured by his anxiety against the dark phenomena around him, and driven by the touch of malevolence that lingered from the shadows, Ervin decided on instinct to break off from his scouting-focused doctrine and eliminate a dangerous opponent here and now in a direct fight.

Bursting from cover, Ervin bolted towards the other side of the street. The howling of arrows was upon him at once; Ervin did not have the skill to track any missile in the volley, so he instead dropped to and hugged the ground, rolled a few times, and rose up again with a blind parry. His nose was throbbing from rolling his face on the pavement, but a greater pain kicked in from the arrow lodged between his ribs. Despite the shock from his wound, his green-handed assault plan was irreversibly set in motion, and the adrenalin from knowing thus kept him going for a bit longer. His awareness was too shot to be clearly aware that Archer has begun to move, but he had queued up his own actions ahead of time to compensate. Calling out in a clear voice with unflinching directive, he issued an absolute order.

"Archer, NOW! Close in and finish Rider!"

"Juuchi Yosamu!" Even before Archer's weapon fully materialized in his now-burning-red left hand, he rocketed towards the roof of the tall building ahead of him. Ervin could not catch the shape of Archer's absurdly long katana even as it left a screeching trail of demonic fire through the air. A blood-caked explosion took out the roof of the building Rider was standing on, doubtlessly obliterating the horse archer who has long lost the ability to defend himself up close with his lance. It was then that Ervin realized to his dismay that he has vastly underestimated Rider's reload rate, for the doomed servant was able to fire one last volley even as Archer approached. As the thick wave of arrows arrived, Ervin resorted to an insane option on the spot. Up until now the replicated runeblade Nightmare sat quietly in his hand, making neither hiss nor glow, so that Ervin has almost forgotten it. Suddenly now his survival instincts flocked to his hand, and Ervin felt that since he could not dodge all the arrows in his sluggish state, his best chance lay in the sword. Channelling prana through the rune weapon, he swung it forward in full force as he would any other sword. He hoped that there was no hidden way or extra procedure to activate Nightmare's special attack, for he was counting on its barrelling energy wave to shatter the incoming arrows.

"NIGHTMARE!" Ervin called out to his sword as he felt the massive sword gorging on his prana at the hilt and discharging it at its tip. The weapon's appetite nearly emptied him, and as he was left winded his head briefly ached and swam. He could barely make sense of the ponderous cone of violet ripples that departed from him; the only indicator of success that he understood was the fact that the arrows that would have pierced him never fell down. Ervin fell to his knees, as he was for a minute too weak to even support his own weight. But that wouldn't be a problem, he thought, for Archer would soon return to his side, and escort him to safety. Ervin has just eliminated his first enemy servant, and he felt one step close to his goal. But still he reminded himself that the victory has come at a cost. His two resources in this war were Archer's energy reserves and his command seals, both of which were becoming depleted. As he thought it all through, Ervin took a reflective look at the back of his left hand.

There was no command seals left.

Disbelief, shock, panic - reactive sentiments bounced around in Ervin's mind. He'd reject what he saw, but where would he go looking for the missing seals?

No matter. Ervin tried to steady himself as he stood back up. When Archer returns, he'll surely have an explanation.

But Archer did not return. What instead broke the silence behind him was a young woman's voice, the last voice Ervin expected to hear in this place and time.

"It's over, Ervin. Go home."

Fighting back the pain in his side, Ervin clutched his sword and spun around at a familiar figure. She was fully clad in her combat-mage armour, covered head-to-toe in her orange-trimmed crimson battle plate. She only wore this full dress-up for the most dangerous of errands, so there was no doubt that she meant business.

"Elise...!" As Ervin made an effort to pull himself together, he took note of the shady figure standing beside his sister. He was dressed in a clearly anachronistic fashion, perhaps that of a monk from many centuries ago. Ervin guessed at first that he must be a mage from the association, possibly Elise's paymaster. But at a closer look the stranger appeared rather subservient, which threw off Ervin's assumptions. His mind swam with several threads of thoughts. He wondered when Archer would show up. He wondered what Elise was doing here. He wondered about the shadowy stranger standing beside her. But despite all that, beyond all his doubts, he was at least glad that Elise was here, and that he was in good hands.

"What's going on?" Ervin looked to Elise for an explanation. "What are you doing here? It's dangerous."

"Your part in this war is over, Ervin. Go home." The fiery-clad combat mage repeated herself sternly, showing an unusual lack of her regular sweetness and warmth. "Your servant is gone, and you are no longer a master."

"No, no..." Ervin gave a knee-jerk reply as he caught on that Elise spoke as though she knew full well about the Grail War. Ervin saw the most likely implication, and fell silent. He did not try to voice the sum of his mixed feelings; he could not even nod, shake his head, or walk away. For the moment his plate was full from simply trying to cope with the brute facts that lay before him. Even as a lump formed in Ervin's throat, Elise confirmed all his guesses, plus change.

"Your Archer is gone, Ervin. Caster and I saw to that."

Ervin did not care for asking "how." What he wanted to ask was "why," but he briefly doubted whether there was a point in asking even that. Again he recalled the words that overshadowed his life since he was a young boy - 'a kin they never meet, is a kin they'll never hurt.' If the Root truly placed such a wyrd on his bloodline, should he be surprised then, that fate has pitted him against his loving sister here and now? But despite all the logic, Ervin was compelled in the end to ask anyway. Elise has just admitted to having somehow stabbed his servant in the back, and it felt as though the perfect trust Ervin has built with his sister over the years now took an irrecoverable blemish.

"Why, Elise?" Ervin squeezed the undertone-filled question out of his tight throat. His wounded ribs complained painfully as he spoke, and the resulting weariness took away from his patience for the sister he has loved so much.

At first she evaded the question. "Caster's ability lies in influencing the future. You've stayed within his technique long enough for him to briefly alter your mindset, causing you to inadvertently spend three command seals for a single order-"

"But WHY, Elise?" Ervin's tone became hot. "What are you fighting me for?"

Elise's normally-kind voice sounded almost frighteningly firm, leaving no doubt that she was dead set on whatever course she was taking. "I found a way to save our family, Ervin. When I was assigned the errand to win the Grail, the Association promised to reward me with access to their libraries, so that I can make quicker headway with my research."

"Your research?" Ervin had no idea what Elise was talking about. Wasn't she just an errand girl, sent by the Association around the world to escort convoys and dig artefacts? Although upset at having been left in the dark, Ervin still wanted to believe that whatever Elise may have hid from him, her intents were not originally malevolent. In fact, from the context of her words, Ervin had a good hunch on just exactly what kind of research she has been delving into.

"You have been trying to manipulate destiny." After the words left his mouth, Ervin could feel the sense of regretful apology permeating his sister's acquiescence. He felt sick in stomach. Sure, he has always suspected that Elise took the weight of their family curse upon herself in an attempt to give him a happier life, but he would never have guessed that she would go this far.

"Elise, I can't let you do this. Even if you win, even if you make headway in your research, it's not worth it. Manipulating destiny sounds like a True Magic, and researching on it right under the Association's eye will only net you a Sealing Designation. I'm not going to lose you like that..."

"A change of fate doesn't require True Magic. It can be done with magecraft." Elise let out a repressed sigh, revealing that she was just as mentally taxed as her little brother. "Enough discussion, Ervin. Even if I do get sealed, it's our only way out. I can't expect-"

"Master!" The old-fashioned monk cut her off abruptly. "I predict danger!"

A tongue of blood-coloured flame erupted from the distance and shot towards Elise, who promptly vanished from where she stood and reappeared a dozen paces away. The snaking fire made a sharp turn to keep on her tail, and Elise phased away again. The fire continued to follow her for two more turns until burning itself out, at which point the figure who cast the attack emerged from the shadows. The ghastly shape leapt forward with deadly grace, tracing another trail of crimson fire with its hand. Elise phased away again, expecting the jet of flame to follow, but instead the fire congealed into a spear in the assailant's hand, who now pursued Elise in person. After several jumps, Ervin noted that his sister's evasion seemed to lose its steam, and the attacker's spear came within half a metre from her chest. Now instead of trying to phase away once more, the seemingly empty-handed Elise clenched her hands together as though holding something, and swung hard across her chest. Sparks accompanied the clashing sound of steel, and the combatants came to a standstill. Although Elise's posture was upright and staunch while her opponent's posture was lithely bent and twisted, Ervin observed to his dismay that his sister was steadily losing the weapon wrestle. Whoever managed the successful parry would get off a quick and deadly counterattack, and it did not look good for Elise. Ervin cursed himself for being far too drained now to meaningfully intervene, and wondered why Caster appeared equally useless as he stood to the side. Seeing no other choice, Ervin was about to lift Nightmare and do what little he could, until he finally took note of the ghastly spear-woman's familiar features.

Her plain but elegant face, along with her softly angular chin, was all but lost under a mess of long purple hair. Two glowing red orbs shone from beneath the purple haystack, compounding upon the menacing look of the smeared, dried blood around her lips. A far cry now from the vulnerable girl in the tea shop just two nights before, she now only resembled a complete terror.

"Brigit..." Ervin's voice was almost involuntary. The very picture that lay before him completely drowned out his feeble efforts to make sense of it. He has had one too many shocks for the night, and his cognitive skills failed to keep up with the chain of twists that the blasted Root has thrown at him. In his soup of judgements and sentiments, only the instinctual urge to reach out to her floated to the top. Perhaps he just wanted a reason to renew his faith in her humanity. Even if it was to be a simple reply, like 'I can't control this,' or 'you won't understand,' it would be all he needed. Failing that, even a 'get lost,' or a simple grunt of acknowledgement, would be enough.

Or failing that... Ervin realized that even if she showed no reaction and slew him on the spot, it would be 'enough.' To him, she would always be the girl in the tea shop. He called her name again, louder this time, and ventured to take a step closer. She reeked of blood, but Ervin took a deep breath and looked steadily into her eyes.

Brigit turned his way and stared back at him blankly with her reddened pupils. Her muscles relaxed by a fraction, and Elise seized the opening. Knocking the spear wide, she slashed Brigit across her abdomen with a sickening slosh, and the smaller girl collapsed. As her wound quickly began to close itself, Elise moved in to decapitate her.

"Wait, no-" Ervin objected with words, but seeing how Elise did not slow down, he moved in and blocked an executing move with what strength he had left.

"Damn it Ervin, what are you doing?" Elise snapped as she prepared to shove the confused brother out of her way. "Who's side are you on?" She lifted her arms again, hoisting her invisible weapon high above her head.

"I should have asked you that when you jinxed Archer from behind!" Seeing how Elise wasn't going to give in, Ervin knee-jerked a rebuttal without thinking. But as soon as the words left his mouth, he regretted it. The trust and bonding between the weathered siblings, so strongly built over twenty years, has already been sent to the edge of a precipice in the course of a night, and now Ervin's latest words likely just succeeded in kicking it completely over the ledge.

"So that's what this is about." Elise nodded bitterly. "Guess the wyrd's got it right. I'm a backstabber and you can't trust me anymore."

For some reason, Ervin's attempt to salvage the sudden rift got stuck in his throat and never came out. Was this too, a play of the Root? Ervin stood idle and helpless, taking in his sister's final words before she disappeared into the still-dark early morning.

"Guess you're not coming home."

********************************************************Chapter End**********************************************************

************************************************Servant Stat Unlocked: Berserker**************************************************

Class: Berserker

Master: Jacob Bathory

True Name: Neferkheperure-Waenre Amarna

Sex: Female

Height/Weight: 175cm, 50kg

Alignment: Chaotic Insane

***Parameters:***

Strength: C – B++

Magical Energy: E ++

Endurance: C – B++

Luck: E

Agility: B – A++

Noble Phantasm: C – B++

***Class Abilities:***

Mad Enhancement: C: raises all parameters except luck and magic, at the cost of sanity.

***Skills:***

Bravery: A: cannot be demoralized or confused. This supplements the effects of her lower-level Mad Enhancement to make her completely morale-immune.

Cursed: B: luck parameter fixed permanently at E, but negates the enemy's luck-based defences; receives increased bonuses and decreased penalties from dark magic.

***Noble Phantasms:***

Shroud of Broken Will: in life, Berserker was always in the thick of slaughter whenever conflicts arose. Enemies who looked upon her bloody visage would lose their nerves, and become unable to attack her accurately with projectiles. As time went on, the rumoured curse that none can harm her from afar became an essential part of any dark fable that brought up her name. As a heroic spirit, this translates to a resistance aura against ranged attacks.

Rank: C

Type: Anti-Army

Range: Self

Target: Self

Aten Sun Disc: during her reign as an ancient king, the Sun-Disc insignia of her personal god was inscribed on the highest places, under which she led massive rituals in the light of the sun. It was said that since she has purposed herself as the mediator between god and men, the Sun-Disc was truly a symbol of her own effective godhood. As a heroic spirit, this component of her legend manifests itself as a fake sun that rises over the battlefield, gradually multiplying all of Berserker's parameters aside from luck up by ++ during the course of a fight.

Rank: A

Type: Support

Range: Self

Target: Self


	10. Crossing: The Hero that Nobody Knows

Author's note: If I kept my style consistent, this whole chapter should be in italics. But I thought it wasn't worth making the whole chapter harder to read.

***Story Start***

I woke up floating down the river Thames, and felt the slosh of the polluted water around my soaked body. Sensing feebleness in my limbs, I refrained from vaulting out of the water and chose instead to swim for the shore. As I made my way to the north bank, I did a quick recount of my available prana to try and account for this new sense of exhaustion that didn't quite seem to add up from my past energy expenditures. I started out in the war with a thousand units of od. The cost of conventional projections totalled to about a hundred units thus far. On top of that I've had to trace the Rod of Asclepius twice to save Ervin, and that took two hundred units each time. All together, I've lost five hundred od, which should leave me with another five hundred. My body shouldn't be feeling any notable strains just yet, so the reason for this elusive weakness had to come from elsewhere.

I recalled what happened the night before as I pulled myself ashore. There was a battle with Rider, and I've slain him with the accused Juuchi Yosamu, one of the most feared swords from sixteenth century Japan, brainchild of the legendary mad smith Muramasa. What struck me as odd was that the effect of his command seal lacked a clear direction. Normally, an order from a command seal must be simple and direct, but Ervin's command seal compelled me to close in, compelled me to target Rider, and compelled me to make a broken phantasm out of Juuchi Yosamu.

Making a broken phantasm out of that bloodthirsty blade may have ensured victory, but it was not something I would have done under any other circumstance. The cursed weapon forever longs to cut everything around it, and by pushing that urge over its limit I've inflicted a great deal of needless hurt on myself. Thanks to its violent discharge, I must have been blown clear off the tower into the river, and washed downstream.

But that meant Ervin has been on his own for the rest of last night.

It is possible for most servants to sense when their masters are in danger, and for me this was no exception. As I did not register any perception of Ervin being threatened, I at first took my time in making my way back to town, thinking that I had a whole day before it would get dark and dangerous for my master again. But when I realized that I didn't perceive ANY connection to Ervin at all, the much harsher reality sank in.

My master did not survive till dawn. The war was over for us, and I have failed him.

I did my best to keep my mind sharp, so as to at least distil the facts. Usually, a master-less servant would disappear from his or her space and time in a matter of moments; the only reason I was still anchored to this plane was that I was summoned as an Archer-class servant, who by default possessed the class trait of 'independent action.' This meant that I could persist independently in this space and time for several more days, until I steadily run out of energy to sustain my existence.

Which was just as well - for the borrowed time I ran on was meant by the Root as a chance to finish up my alternate objectives. Being a counter guardian rather than a pure heroic spirit, the only times when I may manifest as a Grail War servant is when the outcome of the war might threaten the survival of the world. But of course the Root, in Her generosity, never sheds light beforehand on just where the threat might loom. As such, it was up to the guardians to do the investigation as well as fighting on their own. The usual hitsuzen was that if a guardian wins the war, all of his or her objectives would be met naturally; but that simple guideline is denied to me now, and I must work with what little I had.

The lingering shadow of the human I once was longed for the impossible prospect of using my final days in this world for a vacation. For even after an eternity on duty, I could not forget some of the things in the world that I wanted to revisit. Through still duty-bound to the Root, without an immediate master to devote my focus to I suddenly found myself in nostalgia.

But of course I cannot escape from duty again. It was to be my punishment, after all.

That being said, there was at least one place from the past around here that Akasha would excuse me for visiting, if only I could recall its whereabouts from my long-outdated mental maps. It was a secret lodging somewhere in the East End, a safe house built by the Association's local branch for visiting magi. I've stayed there once myself back in my time, when I came here with Toshaka Rin on a conference. However, there was also a tactical reason for my visitation. It was a general heuristic that mages with close ties to the association liked to stay in safe houses during wars, for they were often warded against possible breaching by spiritual entities. If that house I knew of remained standing in this time, and should it be still in service, it might be advantageous to investigate. It just might contain a key player in this Grail War, or perhaps some leads.

Finding the place wasn't easy, as the passing century has mauled the outer rings of the city beyond recognition. Devoid of grass, proper sidewalks, or even intact road signs, what broken-windowed buildings still stood were just different shades of grey. Even though I had a perfect mental picture of the neighbourhood back then, the hope of finding any matching landmarks here and now seemed slim. Still, I groped about in these districts in the chilly morning, nominally trying to continue my mission, but in effect giving myself time and space to think about a number of things.

The relationship between master and servant was often a tenuous one. There was more than a good chance that the servant would not mix well with the master, which could lead to abuse against the servant or betrayal against the master. Servants were much more likely to work with the master when doing so suited whatever agendas that they've had. More often than not, the agenda involved winning the Grail and getting a wish of their own. But for myself, I've never operated on such incentives. I would always serve my master to the last, never questioning orders unless they'd harm a mass of innocents. Maybe that's why I've never won a Grail for any master. Because I had no private agenda, I lacked the initiative of the more self-serving spirits. There were no miracles that I wanted to wish for, for I was content with what I've enjoyed in life. Neither were there any regrets that I wanted to wish away, because not owning up would wrong those I've hurt even more. Such a disposition may seem fitting for a counter guardian at a glance, but the deeper truth was that I did not possess the consciousness of a real hero. A hero would possess some kind of eternal motive or ideal, which would grant his or her spirit the power to achieve greater deeds. My lacking in this respect does a lot to account for the difference in performance between me and some of the more successful servants that I've encountered, be they gallant or villainous. But regardless of that, my way of doing things was important to me, and I wouldn't change it even if the Root demanded more results.

Speaking of results, I actually managed to stumble upon the neighbourhood I was looking for. As expected, the place was run-down, but because the bushes and fences surrounding the mansion itself has been all but ripped clean, it actually made the unmistakable shape of the structure easier to see from a distance. It was a three-storey house, and its front face was six windows across on each floor. Seeing how the glass have been shattered at places, I guessed that the safe house have become abandoned after all. Still, I had my reasons to go inside and have a look, not the least because its emptiness might be an illusion. The first test was to see whether I could dematerialize through the front door. As a spirit could only pass through physical obstacles that weren't dense with mana, trying to pass through the front door was a direct test to see whether any warding was still in place. If the door passes my test, I'd have to be alert.

I slipped through the thick oaken door with ease, and I remained dematerialized as I explored about. The kitchen still looked the same, plus the thick coating of dust, webs, and the lack of intact furniture. I smiled to myself as I recalled the one time I've had to cook here. Toshaka had a bone with pick with the local cuisine, and so on that evening I was under absolute order to raid the local grocery and feed our party of four right here in the lodge. Never one to shy from kitchen duty, I accomplished my mission with all the effectiveness of a chef-class servant, only to find out after doing the dishes that the malicious sisters were far from done with me.

I couldn't suppress a good-humoured grimace as I made my way upstairs, subconsciously materializing again just from the sheer vividness of these flashbacks. Reminding myself that I was technically doing business here at the moment, I shook off those many thoughts for while and methodically checked each room. Every place was the same, complete with spider webs, dust, scattered graffiti, and the occasional hammer-wound on the wall, the latter no doubt the works of crude looters. For good measure I scoured every corner with a strict tactical eye, but still found nothing of significance. Having now made sure that the perimeter was for better or worse secure, I made my way to the spacious room at the end of the west wing on the top floor.

The mega-sized bed was long gone, and the curtains have been pilfered for fabric. The dust has grown so thick that it all caked together on the floor in one sprawl, and not even the breeze that seeped in from the smashed window could lift any dusty swirls off the ground. I scanned the room's beaten outlines, and traced a broom and a dustpan in my hands. Those were tools that were originally of this room from back in the day. Owing to the fact that my tracing ability automatically recalls what the item has seen, as I began to the clean the room the familiar memories I wanted to revisit resurfaced with all its details.

***Scene Break***

"Ma-de! Ma-de!" I asked Sakura to slow down as she dragged me out of the kitchen and up the stairs. My hands were still soapy and I haven't had a chance to take off my apron, but she was all but oblivious to my complaints.

"Anata..." She mumbled in a slurred voice, another needless confirmation that she was drunk. Toshaka has goaded her sister to help themselves to the whiskey in the cellar, and they've no doubt been 'sampling' upstairs. I knew I would not be exempt from their festivities, and my strategy of giving the sisters an ample head start in the drag seemed to have backfired. In these times, I could expect Rider to be reading her books off to the side, turning a blind eye as her master pulls me around by the ears. Oh well, at least Toshaka was a moderate drinker, and I could count on her help to prevent any debauchery from going out of hand.

"HAYAKU-KOI-MEOW!" Accompanied by the clamour of a tall glass slamming against the table, Toshaka's call for us to hurry upstairs echoed all the way down from the third floor.

Never mind what I've said earlier. Root help me now.

I opened the door to find no less than ten bottles on the floor. Two bottles were already empty and a third was well on its way. Against all odds, Toshaka still maintained her own brand of dignified posture, although her eyelids drooped notably and she was making more than the occasional cat sound.

"Toshaka! Are you sure this is okay? You've just raided their cellar."

"Daijoubu-kuru-meow." Her paw-waving assurance, now not only catty but mixed with gibberish, was anything but assuring. "We were charged for beverages meow, in our lodging fee meow..."

Of course, ever the pinching miser. That explains her unusual bout of over-drinking. She was just trying to get our money's worth for renting this safe house. Come to think of it, perhaps one reason she put me to the kitchen was to make good on the flat utility fee. As I came to the realization that she would be off the deep end for the evening, I was forced to sit down on the floor and join in. Rider meanwhile was calm and collected, completely shutting out the rest of us as she read a book on the bed. There was no doubt now that all ten bottles had to consumed, and I could use a fourth helper.

"Rider." I called to her, inviting her over to join us. But she simply turned around at me with a mischievous grin. By the time I realized that she didn't have her reading glasses, I was already frozen stiff below the waist. Before I could protest, the cup was held against my lips.

"Eto...dozo." I took the cup with a genuine grin and drank my first. Sakura's drunken prank may have gone a bit too far, but seeing her outgoing and frivolous side was a rare gift, and I was glad that we were making memorable moments out of our vacation. Despite not being able to move my lower body, I drank a second cup and began to unwound. Even before I put down the empty glass, she poured me another and I drank promptly. As long as she was happy, I didn't mind.

"Sakura-kuru-meow." Toshaka raised a tipsy lecturing finger. "Slow down meow. You're going to poison Emiya-kuru-meow."

"Ehhh? Nee-chan is jealous." Sakura turned to her sister, her voice suddenly dark. The sisters traded shots often enough, but now under the influence of substance things were liable to explode in a hurry. When Sakura proceeded to migrate onto my petrified lap under her sister's smirking eyes and grin, which no doubt harboured a scalding and corrosive remark, I was prepared to witness the worst.

"Trying hard to replace Saber-kuru-meow?"

My temperature dropped. I suddenly felt like a sober mind wearing a head that was overcome with sudden nausea. Toshaka's words could have been addressed to either me or Sakura, with multiple meanings in either case. I didn't blame Toshaka for opening those wounds; she was drunk and didn't mean what she said. The one who should really take the blame was the one who caused those regrettable things while fully sober. I gulped down another cup before realizing that I shouldn't add fuel to her caustic remark by reacting to it, but I felt a bit overwhelmed, and failed to readjust my expression. For a second I was so out of it that I poured wine into my own glass. I was about to smooth over my faux pas by handing my glass to Sakura, but then I saw that she was in no mood to play along.

She was definitely upset. Suffocating energies oozed out of her skin, and flushed away her body's pigmentation. From behind her white hair, cold red eyes stared at the foolish sister who has spoken on a forbidden subject.

"Urusai...onee-chan." Sakura's voice was cold enough to form frost on the window. The floor beneath Toshaka melted into a black shadow, and she fell down to the room below. Her angry meows were shut out as the black circle reformed into the floor. Rider has meanwhile dematerialized and fled the scene, leaving me alone in the room with Sakura, who now turned to face me.

"You miss her." She wasn't asking a question. The truth was obvious.

"I do." Maybe it wouldn't sit well with Sakura, but this wasn't something I could lie about. She fell silent for a moment, and the air in the room stood still. I averted her gaze at first, but when we realized that we forgot to breathe and exhaled at the same time, our eyes met.

"I miss her too." She whispered, and buried my face in her chest.

***Scene Break***

Drowsiness set in sometime during my flashback, and I fell asleep on the floor. Sleeping was a decent mechanism for a servant to maintain his or her corporeality. Assuming the servant does no fighting during the day, he or she can replenish most of that day's passive prana expenditures with a night of sleep. But the heightened senses of most servants make them light sleepers, and they will rouse at the slightest disturbance. These things could be as mundane as footsteps, or as exotic as another servant's ominous presence. In my case though, it was the sound of a passing vehicle below the house.

I opened my eyes at the dull humming of the passing wheels three floors below. Clear starry skies were unknown to the dimly monochrome nights of this age, so the thrice-refracted street lights limping through the broken window formed the only feeble beam in this ruined room. I wasted no time as I dematerialized through the walls and floors out into the street. It was night time, and there shouldn't be anyone who dares even wander in these gang-infested districts, much less invite sport-sniping by being the only car in sight. If this scenario happened back in Fuyuki, I would have chosen to sleep through it even as a servant. But in the here and now, with the Grail War happening in a city where every moving thing on the street past nightfall had to do with either crime, magecraft, or both, I thought there was a good reason to make absolutely sure that passed car didn't contain anything I would be interested in.

Even though the car was gone by the time I made it out of the house, I thought it suspicious that not even the sounds of its engines hung in the distant air. If a car was so fast that it could so quickly escape the hearing range of my reinforced ears in the dead of night, it would have revved up a really loud noise as it passed by the safe house. As I did not hear engine-revving sounds of that magnitude, I could only conclude that the car couldn't have gone far.

If it didn't drive far but stopped making engine sounds, it meant that the car has stopped somewhere nearby. Lightening my body, I vaulted into the air and took a bird's eye view of the vicinity, hoping to catch the car before it turns off its lights. I had no such luck, but I wasn't quite out of options yet. There were only about two dozen cars parked in my field-of-view, and the one with the warmest temperature had to be the car I was after. Reinforcing my eyes to see slightly into the infrared was at the limit of my vision-reinforcement capacities and required as much prana as tracing a sword, but in this case it was both sufficient and well worth the cost. Scanning the area once more with my reinforced vision, I saw a minivan behind an abandoned snack bar that was tinted slightly red from within, giving away the heat signatures of its passengers.

I dematerialized and drifted forward quietly. Strangely enough its engine hatch looked completely dark, which made me suspect a modified cooling system. Since vans aren't made to race, the modification hinted that the vehicle had an industrial purpose, whatever it might be. I was perched on the roof right above it now, looking through the minivan's side windows. The driver's seat was empty, and both clouds of red were in the back, behind the obscuring tinted glass. I couldn't see what was inside, but their rough shapes suggested that they were getting intimate. Here, no matter how much I tried to convince myself that my scouting mission was strictly professional, I still thought it rather inappropriate to sit and stare. I stayed dematerialized on the roof and observed the movements inside the van periodically, keeping a distasteful balance between turning my back to the opponent and being a peeping pervert. For a while I was glad that my reinforced vision still could not clearly see the exact picture inside. For better or worse, strong though servants may be, we were far from being omnipotent.

Such a mentality caused me to become rather startled when the middle side window facing me began to roll down. But within seconds I gravely regretted not being more guarded than I was. Residue mana in the air around where I hovered condensed and popped in explosive sparks. Those sparks themselves were harmless enough; but since immaterial servants cannot occupy the same space as a piece of mana-dense material, the brief condensing of mana was enough to force me into corporeality. That was when a masterfully-timed kill-shot zoomed through the open window. The sniper round slammed against my breastplate and managed to cause a tiny rip, leaving no doubt that had it hit somewhere else by luck I could very well have been killed. Habitually I traced Kanshou and Byakuya as I widened my distance with the enemy. Judging from how hard the shot has hit my near-impervious chest armour, I deduced that even I might not be fast enough to parry their incoming bullets at closer ranges. In fact rather than trying to do so at all, I simply launched my swords at the minivan. The properties of my favoured weapons were such that when they both flew out, they would make a quick arc in the air, circle around to the back of my target, and converge upon it in a decent-sized explosion. As my blades flew in the air, I dematerialized again to dodge incoming shots, and changed my position so that I would be on a blind spot of their gun-port. As I did so and made the next shot go wide, my own weapons found their mark.

When I discovered to my surprise that my blades have only managed to score a tiny crossed gash on the van's hull, I had no remaining doubts that the combined strength of the opposing duo could very well stand up to that of my own. Just based on the exchange that has unfolded so far, I could almost be sure of the nature of my opponents. They were dangerous combatants who clearly had access to magecraft, right within the setting of a Grail War. This almost certainly labelled them as master and servant. The master had to be an alchemist, which would explain how the air around me could become infused and transmuted to force me out of hiding. The resilient hull of the van was mostly likely also the result of transmutation, further meriting the soundness of my guess. As for the servant, it wasn't immediately obvious which class he belonged to, but he seemed to be a fan of guns, and was quite deadly with one. Assuming that the gunner servant was the main damage dealer of the duo, I decided that they had two weak zones - beyond their maximum range, or within their minimum. Choosing to enter into the latter to make the kill, I closed in on the roof of their own van. If the hull was so tough, they wouldn't be able to shoot through at me; while I on the other hand was confident about doing the reverse at my leisure by tracing a more powerful projection.

As I hovered above the vehicle and prepared to jam Hrunting right through the top, one of the two people inside made his move. The obviously modified left side door slid open almost weightlessly, and the figure of a young man fell out of the car on his back. Even before he hit the ground he raised his hands upwards, an assault rifle held in each, and fired full auto. I phased out to dodge the ferocity of his burst fire, and closed in on him in one swift motion. I saw his face then - fairly young, clean-shaven, with bright eyes and moderately short blonde hair. He was gauging me as well, with narrowed eyes and furrowed brows, though I had no way of knowing how much he read in that passing moment before I vanished and closed in. Regardless, as he hit the ground with a thud, I reappeared in his face and made a move to run him through with Hrunting.

"Ritterkreuz." The servant uttered under his breath. As I brought Hrunting down, it hit an invisible barrier, and there was a discordant ring of metal hitting metal. Although it absorbed much of my attack's momentum, I felt his invisible shield crack and give way. I was about to follow through on another downward plunge, when I heard a gun's cocking sound from behind me. Realizing the fatal danger I was in, I did an about face and projected Rho Aias against the sniper round fired behind my back. The shot was fired so quickly from the time of loading that only five of my shield's seven petals unfolded before the round hit home. Clearly I have erred in assuming the servant to be the only marksman, but I stopped myself from further analysis as I realized that my back was now towards the said servant. The shield has just unfolded between me and the master in the van, and there was no way to re-project another one behind me in time. Thinking fast, I had no choice but to divert maximum energy to physically reinforce my exposed backside, especially my skull. Even as I did so I felt several excruciating and disorienting impacts from rifle rounds at the back of my head, and I could swear that I felt something crack. Blocking out the distracting injuries, I lunged forward into the van before the master had a chance to fire again, for I could not maintain Rho Aias under this condition. The whole idea behind my gambit at this point was that, as I've been tricked into jumping in between two marksmen, instead of turning round and round to defend against both sides I was better off leaving one side relatively open and focus my attack on the other.

At least the master didn't prove to be a challenge up close, or else I might have returned to the Root early right there and then. I seized her by the neck and placed her between her servant and myself. As everyone on the scene finally froze, I patched up the grievous wounds on the back of my head by reinforcing the oozing blood quickly into some hard substance to plug up the holes. Compared to the Rod of Asclepius, this prana-saving first-aid substitute was much less elegant. Had I been a real mortal, the spilled blood inside my cranium would start to cause trouble within a month. But since I was a servant, even if I couldn't slowly regenerate that injury, another month was surely beyond my allotted time here anyhow. But as I steadied myself after my hacksaw-style bandaging, I saw that the other servant did not drop his gun.

First of all, that reminded me of another fact. Did he not fire on full auto as he jumped out of the van? How did he still have ammunition to shoot me in the head afterwards? It occurred to me then that the tricky servant must have deliberately left ONE of his guns on semi. This was a hint that their entire chain of manoeuvres, starting from when they first rolled the window down, was planned right from the start and executed with impressive coordination. Had I still been a legit contestant in this Grail War, I would have doubtlessly snapped the girl's neck without hesitation, so as to eliminate a most potent rival. But now things weren't quite that simple. I had to piece together the nature behind this Grail War, and find out why I've been summoned here. I needed to gather clues that'll reveal my real objective here as a counter guardian, and the duo before me might have some of those clues.

"Drop the gun." I ordered the servant. All the while, the master stayed still and put up no resistance, but her lightly panting breaths became increasingly agitated. I kept my eyes fixed on the enemy who was still free. Seeing that he showed no intention of putting down his weapon, I tightened my arm against his master, who let out a gagging cough.

In all impossibility, he actually raised his gun directly at us. Did he not care that he was actually going to hit his master rather than me? I couldn't help but let out a silent sneer of disappointment on the girl's behalf. For all their seemingly tight bond and their seamless coordination, the servant did not really seem to care for his master's safety. After gauging his face in our brief exchange, my instincts questioned whether he really was one of those servants who would actually finish off his own master just to tie up a loose end. But seeing how he was such a cold-headed thinker, I didn't put that above him.

What puzzled me more though was the lack of reaction on the part of the female master. Seeing her own servant pointing his gun at her without regards for her safety should have prompted her to use a command seal right on the spot. A simple order such as 'don't betray me' or 'guard me with your life' would have done the job fine. But why did she totally not move?

The next thing came so fast even for someone of my speed; the sound of bouncing bullets and the shocking feeling of fresh trauma at the back of my head seemed to occur almost simultaneously. I had to give up my hard-fought opportunity to kill the young woman there and then, because I had to dematerialize to stem the massive bleeding inside my skull. As I drifted away in haste, I quickly digested what has just taken place. That servant has shot at the car window behind me, and bounced off the bullets so that they would all hit the back of my head. That was a doubtlessly a special ability in action; for even if the master transmuted the window into something akin to transparent Kevlar, the bullets' bounce trajectory should have been too random for even a servant to control. I already had a few haunches on the nature of his abilities, but I had to stop and worry about more pertinent things.

Thankfully I was too fast for the master to transmute me back into corporeality, though she at least gave it some token effort. After a short distance the alchemist girl could no longer track my presence, and I was for the moment safe. That was a relative description however, because the next time I materialize, my shot-up body would put me near death. I realized that I had no choice but to burn yet another Rod of Asclepius, and I weighed the heavy accompanying implications. Being down to a mere three hundred prana meant that I had perhaps three or four fights left in me. I would have to choose my battles wisely and make the most out of each one, but since it has already come down to this, so be it.

I readied the image of Asclepius in my mind as I shifted out of the immaterial. The pain of mind-numbing trauma was nothing new to me, so rather than focusing on it I turned my mind to the projection. Sensing my injuries as it appeared in my hands, the snake-coiled rod dissolved on the spot, refilling me with renewed health. Rather than dwelling on the cost of the recovery, I dissolved again into the night to plan my next move.

The focus would still be on the twin gunners. Not only do they hold the rare feat of defeating me in direct combat, they've also displayed a number of points I could exploit. As such, I couldn't just leave them alone.


	11. Crossing: Reseal Your Pacts

Author's Note: another servant blurb posted at the bottom.

***Story Begins Here***

Aria said nothing as she went inside. She made straight for the converted shower room at the far back of the shophouse, not once looking back at Heinz as he closed the door quietly behind him. Although Aria shut the bathroom door very quietly, to Heinz the new distinct clicking sound of the rusty lock might as well have been the clamour of a moody slam.

As their house was originally an abandoned snack bar, when she moved in with Heinz here on the first day they found the bathroom reeking of mold and urine. Together they've since then cleaned and disinfected the filthy floors, moldy walls, and the scum-caked toilet, and furnished the nine square meters with a tub and a showerhead. A look around at the cleaned tiles on the floor and the scrubbing sponge next to the tub somehow worsened her bitter mood, and she bit her lower lip in repressed brooding.

She tore off her ragged denim top and slid off her ripped jeans, underwear and all. Taking out her angst on her flat cups, she crumpled the stringy garment in her hand and tossed it on the floor as she opened the cold tap under the showerhead. She wasn't really sure if it was anger or fear, but she tried to flush it away with near-painful cold shocks and hypothermia. As she forced herself to endure the shivering water and letting it soak her short hair and trickle down her neck, chin, chest, back, and legs, she felt guilty that her character hasn't seen any improvement from before. She was still seeking safety in physical breakdowns to escape from psychological ones, and in realizing so she threw the showerhead down in disgust. But her shivering, spasm-stricken muscles didn't quite move as they should, and after a twitchy step in the slippery bathtub she fell down inside with a crash. As she fell the instinctive urge to cry out became mixed with a sudden urge to sneeze, and she ended up giving herself a painful bite on the cheeks. The pain in her mouth finally compelled her to let out a muffled 'oww' as she coped at the same time with bumped joints, scraped skin, and a shivering body.

"Are you all right?" Heinz called from outside the locked door. Being in the doghouse made him hesitant about opening his mouth, but his concern for Aria proved too strong.

"Why don't you come in and see?" Aria wanted to sound bitter and sarcastic, but the voice didn't come out right. It sounded injured and vulnerable instead.

"I don't have the ability to dematerialize - "

"BULLSHIT!"

Following Aria's angry outburst, Heinz fell silent outside the door. But raging at the boy only made Aria feel worse, for it was particularly hurtful for her to experience yet another reminder that something has broken in her bond with Heinz. As the aftershock of her yelling continued to echo silently in her mind, she felt another chill pass over her. A feeling of heaviness in her chest dampened her fluctuating emotions, and she acknowledged that the boy may be feeling just as down and rotten as she was.

She may have been too moody and over-reactive, but if anyone else really understood how she felt, they wouldn't be calling her on it. The last time she has lived with a roof of her own and a caring someone to care for, felt like a lifetime ago. How could she put it into words? After Ka-San passed away, she spent years coping with the loss by slowly destroying herself. But not even the filthiest struggle to live from day to day could distract even a shrivelled mind from knowing that the graces of 'home' and 'only friend' were forever gone. That was why Heinz has been Hope; he made her a home, and became her only friend. Since Ka-San, Heinz was the only person who could always be trusted, and always be believed.

Except it suddenly became clear tonight that Heinz was not a living person; and in having claimed the reverse, nor was he thus someone who could always be believed. It was clear now that Heinz was a servant just like all the others, and all his talk of being a real person was at best a cover-up for something. What if the promises of home and trust were also lies? What if the nominal goal for them to fight the war was also fabricated? After those missions of gunning people down and recycling corpses, what if the point of it all was simply bogus? Those questions made her upset. She was upset at Heinz for having lied to her, which was now making it difficult for her to trust him, even though she desperately wanted to.

But what was she going to do about all this?

The cold running water pasted her short hair to her scalp, and forced close one of her eyes. As she clutched her shaking body, a new wave of misery washed over her. She thought about the times when Heinz picked her up when she was near death, protected her when she was ignorant and vulnerable, and looked after her when she was completely helpless. It was crushingly painful to her now, to think that none of those things were real; that Heinz had some other objectives...

No.

Aria stopped herself, realizing the fallacy at the bottom of her perceptions. The truth was that the things that Heinz has done for her were actually all real. He really did bandage her trauma when she was near death. He really did fight to protect her even when he had virtually nothing to work with. He really did stay by her side, cleaning her sheets and tending her fevers when she went through personal hell. He really did put himself in the line of fire to save her, putting her safety above that of his own. If she was so insistent about knowing truths, why did she not stop at these? As these things dawned on her, Aria asked herself how she really felt about Heinz. She didn't have to dig very deep to realize what the answer was, and she concluded in turn that if she really valued him so much, she should give him more room for mistakes, and set fewer standards for him. If his past actions have meant so much to her, then who cares if his words didn't always strike true? If his existence has meant so much to her, then who cares if he wasn't really mortal?

She stepped out of the tub and made for the door. Her five minutes of seclusion was over, and she has reoriented herself. If what she really wanted was a healthy bond with him, then to that end she needed to take the first step forward.

With a rusty, grinding click, the bathroom door opened, and Aria found Heinz sitting dejectedly beside the door. Upon hearing the sound of the turning knob, he hesitantly turned his head and looked up, but quickly looked away.

Aria guessed that Heinz must have been hurt by her outburst; she was about to sink into a bout of quiet remorse, when she started to sneeze uncontrollably.

***Scene Break***

"I want to know two things." Sitting in a curl on her mattress, Aria spoke flatly but sincerely as she tightened her sleeping gown to keep warm. "First, I want you to tell me if your intent for the Grail is really what you've told me before. I want to know if you really meant it when you said you wanted a broken world to come together." Aria paused to let the question sink in, but Heinz stayed silent, seeming to expect the second question before answering both, so Aria continued. "Second, I want to know the true nature of servants, and how they are related to their masters."

Sitting on the other mattress across from Aria, Heinz began his revelations with subdued melancholy. Coupled with his accent, it left his explanations sounding like a Teutonic, grim, and heavy oration.

"To begin with, a servant is an instance of the spirit of someone from the past, present, or future. The spirit's original blueprint resides in an abstract entity deep within the Root, known as the Throne of Heroes. A servant is always an immortalization of someone important to mankind's belief, cognition, or survival at some point in their mortal lives. When these spirits manifest in the real world, they essentially exist as powerful human familiars, whose mere unnatural existence in this plane nominally demand more prana than this world can reasonably provide..." Heinz paused suddenly, and spoke to Aria in a less repressed, but equally low-key manner. "I haven't answered your questions yet, but does my story make any sense so far?"

"That you're a ghost from the Root, and you nominally can't exist? I get that, if that's what you mean."

"Essentially." Heinz returned to his heavy, revelatory voice and continued. "One of the few mechanisms that can sustain a servant's existence is the Grail system. The Grail itself provides the bulk of the magical upkeep for at least seven servants in every Grail War. It also provides at least seven masters during each War with the means to bind one of them."

"Bind them HOW?" The mentioning of the master's role heightened Aria's awareness and curiosity.

"With the exception of our own case, this binding exists in the form of three sigils called command seals. At the beginning of each War, magi chosen by the Grail to become masters will either consciously or unconsciously conduct a ritual that calls their servant fourth. This ritual tattoos three sigils on the mage's body, which symbolize the contract between master and servant. Each sigil can be expended to give the servant an absolute command. If all three sigils are expended, it terminates the contract. If the servant remains contract-less for more than a day, he or she will likely disappear and return to the Root." Heinz paused again, anticipating the next clarification that Aria would most obviously demand.

"Why is our case an exception?"

"I am a rogue servant, left over from the Grail War twice prior to this one."

"What?" Aria felt that the fact meant something big just from his tone, and the weight of the statement became heavier and heavier with each passing second as she began to understand and see a chain of implications.

"But if you lost that War, How did you survive until now?" Aria's phrasing of her question hinted at her aversion to what the truth might hold, but Heinz, anxious to atone for his guilt of concealment, could no longer bear to withhold that truth from her.

"We didn't lose. We won."

"THAT MEANS - " Aria's eyes went wide as she covered half of her face with her hand, her signature expression of shock and anger against a repulsive revelation. She caught herself before she could spring up from the mattress and squeeze an explanation out of Heinz with both hands, and instead just grilled Heinz with the gaze of her uncovered eye.

"Tell me the truth..." Aria stopped herself with a bitter grunt. "Oh, wait, I can't. I don't have command seals." She felt a chill creeping up her back; she wished she could vomit the things she has heard out of her guts, and for once she was left desiring a weaker stomach. Her attempt to fix things up with Heinz was failing terribly, and the chasm between them was growing with each sentence. But she willed herself to continue the conversation, clinging to the glimmer of seemingly false hope that she could yet accept him after knowing the full truth that she was now so anxious to uncover. "Can you tell me the truth, Heinz? If you can't, just say no. Don't make anything up."

Aria was almost too wound up to notice the taxed tremor in Heinz's reply, but his tone and words together were enough to make Aria realize that he too was investing his authenticity into their dialogue. Perhaps the servant had some complicated things that were hard for him to speak up about, and he was going through a great deal of hurt, being torn between wanting to tell the truth and wanting to bury something terrible. She tuned in to his reply; she promised herself to try and accept him, and so long as she could she would keep trying.

"...you think that without command seals, I would tell you white lies?" Heinz let out a repressed sigh. "Do you know the meaning of command seals? They can be understood as forced bonds - a thing enforced by the Grail between master and servant to keep the strength of their bonds above a minimum level. Without it, a servant-master pair with low affinity cannot physically function. As a spirit without a clear master isn't even a familiar, and such spirits cannot be upkept by the Grail, the whole system would fail. Command seals are BONDS, placed by the Grail to ensure some semblance of order in its wars. That is why when a servant disobeys a command seal he would feel a greatly amplified version of what it's like to refuse someone he feels extremely attached to - the same kind of pressure, the same kind of pain. How can you be so sure right now, that I don't feel that way already?"

Aria bit her lips as she walked across the room to the opposite mattress, and sat down behind Heinz. "I'm sorry." She whispered. "You must have had your reasons, right?"

"The wish wasn't..." Heinz trailed off and screwed his eyes shut in a tortured frown. "But no, I wouldn't have known any better myself."

"The wish wasn't yours? It was your master's?" Aria seized the chance to vindicate her servant.

"It wasn't exactly hers either."

"But how? Who made the wish then? What burned out the sky?"

It wasn't in Heinz's nature to tell half-truths, nor was he disposed now to flatly refuse Aria's wish to know it all. His Tutonically blunt personality surfaced in his time of stress, and he revealed things to a point where there was no going back.

"It was my master's master who communed with the Grail first, wishing for a 'world without war.' There was a conventional world war at the time, and your father-"

"WHAT?"

Heinz fell silent; quietly accepting his slip and anticipating Aria to seize him by the neck, but Aria threw her head away to the side and let out a scornful sneer.

"I don't give a shit about him." She spat in her alley-speak. "Left my mom to rot when she had me, and I never saw his face. When I asked her once she just cried, so I knew he was a prick." She snapped out from rambling and threw herself a cynical expression, and turned back Heinz. "So what did that fucker do? He stole your Grail or something?"

"I wish I could call him something else." Heinz conceded, consciously prepared now to tell her the back-story that she was so anxious about just minutes ago. "Mirai Tetsuya was a twisted man, but he wasn't all bad. He was very brilliant and saw his goals and plans very clearly, only he wasn't selective at all in his methods."

"No shit, that's what I thought." Feeling almost no attachment to the virtual stranger, Aria had no trouble facing up the fact that her old man's conduct was somehow total crap. "But tell me what happened. If you and your master won the war, how did he get to make wishes?"

"All three of us won the war. He was my master's master, and he made his wish first."

"Why do you keep saying that? What the hell do you mean?"

"Tetsuya summoned my master, and my master summoned me. So my master was Tetsuya's servant." Heinz's explanation may have been a mouthful, but his point went across.

"Servants can summon servants?" Aria thought out loud as she digested the new fact.

"That's only if the first servant's mortal manifestation has enough magical circuits and prana to qualify as a high-level magus. While my master was not summoned as a Caster, she had more than enough magical potential to summon a servant of her own."

"I see. So I guess the old man blew up the world along with every army, and hung you two out to dry."

"My master killed your father, released me from my contract, and disappeared from the scene. Left alone, I wished to the fading Grail to fix all the damage, but it simply gave me the ability to persist indefinitely, and left it to me to see to my own wish."

"Harsh." Aria remarked after a brief silence. "On you, I mean. I guess the old man must have had it coming, whatever it was that he did." She paused again before asking something else. "So I suppose you came to me because you think it's fitting that I clean up after him, right?"

"No. You had nothing to do with happened. Of everyone left alive, I am the guiltiest by far. I'm the one who has to clean up after myself."

"Well, whatever it is." Aria retorted. "Let me make one thing perfectly clear. I'm not doing this to clean after some old bastard whom I've got nothing to do with. I'm wishing for a better world because I want it, and you want it. That's it. You understand?"

"You're a good person, master."

"Our bond isn't forced, right? So cut the master crap."

"Anything else you want to know?"

"Why didn't YOUR master wish for a better world? I guess she didn't care?"

"She was so overwhelmed with grief at everything that she caused and was forced to do, by that time she was no longer right in the head. She was forced by a command seal to wish for prolonged existence, and the Grail granted it by making her into a mortal. The Grail's sick humour didn't end there, but let's save the rest for another time." Heinz closed his eyes, looking visibly tired. As Aria nodded in turn, mostly to herself to grip the facts, peaceful silence finally came over their salvaged abode.

In a remote corner a safe distance away from the house, the concealed eavesdropper turned off his reinforced hearing and left the couple to their privacy. Like a lost phantom he lightened himself and bounded away, gliding above the rooftops as he planned his next move.

***Scene Break***

Brigit sobbed quietly as she finished her story, and Ervin decided that the most sensitive thing to do was to say nothing and lend a quiet shoulder. His kind gesture was well received, and he felt a warm, twitching shiver run through him as her soft hair brushed against his neck. He sat in an awkward position, but he remained perfectly still. He wanted to make Brigit feel that she had something solid to lean against, even though deep down he berated himself for being far more unreliable than his facade let on. But at length she abruptly pulled away, as if suddenly waking up from a dream.

"You shouldn't be here, Ervin. You shouldn't be around me at all."

"I'm in love with you, Brigit. Unless my absence really makes you happier, I'm going to stay here with you."

"You're going to die, just like all the others. Don't you understand? I'm a disgusting and dirty mons-"

The rest of her sentence melted into a muffled "mmm" as she felt Ervin's warm lips suddenly pressed against her mouth. Almost at the instant she made that sound, the door swung open with a loud booting that no doubt left a few splinters, as Saber stormed into the room with the real Nightmare hoisted in his hand.

"FOUL KNAVE! YOU DIE HERE AND NOW!" His voice reverberated through his helmet as he pointed his sword at Ervin. Brigit reacted quickly then; she pinned Ervin down on the bed with nearly crushing strength, shielding his body from the blade as she smothered him with kisses. The gesture was message enough for the servant, who lifted his visor to stare at the couple with his sickly yellow eyes. Neither Brigit nor Ervin was at an angle to see that there was actually no scorn or anger in his eyes. He dropped but a word in his thin, natural voice, sounding slightly unsteady as he left the room.

"Lame."

The door closed with a surprisingly gentle click, which somehow made Ervin feel an unexplainable sense of sympathy for his unstable contemporary. The source of Brigit's angst on the matter was much clearer, as it clearly pointed to her apparent neglect of her own loyal servant over a questionable and defunct rival master. But for the most part, the little event only served as an affirmation of how they felt about one another. After an unspecified period of idle staring and increasingly laboured breaths, they buried themselves in each other's arms behind the closed, boot-injured door.

***Scene Break***

Brigit remained soundly asleep in her small curl as Ervin gently slipped into his clothes. It was still very early in the morning, but it became hard for Ervin to remain sleeping.

He has been in Brigit's safe house since the night before yesterday, when he lost Archer at the London Bridge. Overwhelmed with losing his sister, his home, his newest friend and his chance to confront his own ghosts, he called in sick for work the day after to give himself some time to come to grips with his wounds and losses. It didn't take much reflection for him to realize that, regardless of whether he had a legitimate reason for it, Brigit has become the most important thing in his life. He has made his confession, and at least touched her heart enough for her to confide in him. When he heard her story, he was struck by how her brutal past made the cause of his own angst pale in comparison. At that point, Ervin knew what he had to do.

Now, the morning after she has confided everything with him, after sleeping on all that he has learned, Ervin set his mind to a number of things. If he really wanted to look out for her, he would have to grow up. He would first of all work at his job at the shop to earn an income for Brigit and himself, regardless of how much resources she has stashed up from before. If she was compelled to live a normal life, he would provide one for her. But he would not stop there. Although his days as master were over, Ervin still had plenty of fight in him. He would assist Brigit, and help her obtain the Grail, so that she could set her own life, and possibly other things, to right.

He made his way downstairs, moving quietly through the living room past the coldly nonchalant servant sitting in front of the old-fashioned television. Saber was a bit slow in un-burying his face from his palm as Ervin's footsteps drew near, and he didn't have time to blink away the look in his eyes when Ervin passed before him. In a brief instant, his nominally ghoulish, unnaturally yellow eyes, far from evoking fear and alienation, radiated a sense of profound weariness that he had been perhaps too groggy to hide. Nevertheless it took Saber but a second to rearrange his own face back to his blatantly hostile stare, hot enough to be hateful and cold enough to be murderous. Ervin made a slightly awkward, token attempt to defuse his contemporary with a polite and cautiously cheerful "good morning," before making for the door as fast as etiquette would allow.

It wasn't that Ervin couldn't understand why Saber might hate him. Being Brigit's servant, Saber likely knew of her past well before Ervin did. Considering that nothing good ever came from any man in her recent life, Ervin could see why a protective servant would be distrustful of him. Or perhaps Saber had his own motives for winning the war, and he saw Ervin as a source of distraction for his master. Either way though, Ervin has become rather battered in the recent course of events, and did not have the energy to initiate any icebreaking with Brigit's eccentric servant. So he thought as he opened the front door of the safe house, breathing in an unseasonably frigid gust of morning air as he cleared his head for an ordinary day behind the counter.

"Cambrian." Saber's voice sounded slightly indecisive, but the resulting lack of control over his own voice made it come out a bit on the loud side.

"What's up, mate?" Ervin turned back to face him.

"Leaving?"

"To work."

"A responsible man." Saber voiced an empty-sounding compliment. "But so were the past six, as I'm sure you've come to know."

Your approval be damned, Ervin cursed quietly. If I've even given up on Elise's approval, then it's sure as the Root that I can't be arsed with yours. But dwelling on the fact that the difficult servant was perhaps simply being loyal to his master, Ervin bit his lips for a less confrontational answer.

"I understand. But I AM different from those people, even if it's just by the circumstances alone." Ervin proclaimed with a quiet sincerity. "I want to give her the normal life that she's compelled to search for, so she can settle down. I know that's what I really want to do."

"No other motives?" Saber narrowed his eyes, his slit-thin pupils now looking as though they belonged to some feral creature that was ready to pounce.

"None." Ervin was quiet but firm.

"Lies. You were a master before you even met her. You must have had a wish of your own to motivate your participation in the war."

"I did." Seeing that he would get a chance at an icebreaking dialogue after all, he took a seat at the couch, opposite of Saber, and elaborated. "Truth be told, I sought to fight a curse in my bloodline that somehow compels us to hurt our own kin. I accepted my role as master, hoping that the Grail would remove the curse. I've only found out later that my sister entered the war as well with the exact same motive, except that she took Archer away from me, and would have taken out Brigit as well. I couldn't let her do that, and we had a fateful falling out. So the curse came true for us before our very eyes, and we went separate ways."

"That's unnatural. More feasible would have been to join up with your sister instead." For a brief second, Saber's musing made Ervin wonder whose side his contemporary was on, but the servant anticipated and addressed Ervin's doubts in a most undesirable manner.

"Had you joined your sister instead, killing you would have been a much simpler matter. You see, even though she left me behind in our night patrol, I could sense the danger she was in, and come to her side rather quickly. Two nights ago on the bridge, I arrived on the scene just as your sister departed, and I found you standing frozen, with my Nightmare raised over her head. Had you tried to bring it down, Brigit's animal instincts would have willed me to kill you at once, regardless of her command seal spent earlier. How I wish you tried."

"So you were there the whole time?"

"Almost. But... your story with your sister and the family curse I did not know." Saber did not attempt to hide the fact that he was computing something in his head, since Ervin could not read his exact thoughts. Ervin saw this, but did not feel any more guarded than he already was. He stayed quiet and waited for Saber to mull things over, before sharing his last thoughts.

"What you saw there, Saber, was a turning point for me. Not knowing you were there, I could have brought it down, and eliminate a rival for my sister. At first I was thinking, if my entire life's goal has been to lift my family curse, then I should not let up on perhaps the only chance to eliminate this rival for my sister. Not doing so was equal to betraying myself, my past, and who I was. I'd also betray my loving sister, my bloodline, and even logic itself. I asked myself whether I could bear to betray all those things. But then I knew that I could not betray Brigit, could not betray how I felt, and could not betray what I want to have and be. I saw the madness fading from her eyes. I saw her staring at me, then closing her eyes, leaving the decision completely to me. I saw how human she could be. There was no way I could bring the sword down. I couldn't... I wouldn't. I won't."

"Enough. I believe everything you say, and I should have realized that it was unnecessary to doubt you." Saber gently blinked away the meditative look in his eyes and stretched off his calculating frown, but continued with words that were no less heavy. "Nevertheless, I can't promise not to kill you."

"Is that so." Ervin's tone was not even that of a rhetorical question, but one of acceptance. "But you know what; we can talk this out over a cup of tea sometime, provided I can help keep the shop alive." Ervin politely stood up and walked to the door, keeping eye contact with Saber and maintaining a light smile. "That means I shouldn't be late for work! And do remember, if I die, you won't get your lunchboxes."

"Right." Saber did not bother standing up as he returned the goodbye wave. "That would be deadly."

*******************************************************************Chapter End***********************************************

**********************************************************Servant Stat Unlocked: XIV Lancer***************************************

Class: Lancer (Former Grail War)

Master: Mirai Tetsuya

True Name: Brigit De Danann

Sex: Female

Height/Weight: 160cm, 40kg

Alignment: Chaotic Good

***Parameters:***

Strength: D

Magical Energy: A

Endurance: D

Luck: B

Agility: A

Noble Phantasm: B

***Class Abilities:***

Independent Action: A+: Servant can remain in this world indefinitely even without a Master. However, if forced into prolonged conflict, she will be compelled to replenish her energy somehow…

***Skills:***

Divinity: A-: indicates a prime deity of a major civilization. However since the time she has been first summoned, this has drastically degenerated.

Magic: A: with a full set of magic circuits and an intrinsic understanding of most magecraft as well as true magic, she qualifies as a magus and has the basic functionalities of a Caster servant regardless of her actual class.

Healing Goddess: A+: can gradually heal any target back to full health even from the verge of death. This ability will activate automatically on Lancer herself as soon as she receives a serious wound.

***Noble Phantasms:***

Breo-Saighead, Lance of the Forge: besides being a Goddess of healing for the Tuatha De Danann, Brigit was also a deity associated with blacksmithing and the forge. In battle, she can call fourth the enchanted fires from the forges of her fabled nation, and from it, craft her battle-lance at full durability. She can also convert the weapon back into fire, and cast it at range as offensive magic.

Rank: B

Type: Anti-Unit

Range: 1-2

Target: 1

Breo-Saighead, the Flaming Arrow: Lancer's flaming lance can be converted back into raw fire at will. It can then be cast as fire magic up to the level of high thaumaturgy, or re-forged back into a solid weapon at full durability.

Rank: B

Type: Anti-Unit

Range: 1-200

Target: 50


	12. Fate: The End Will Unfold

Ervin saw a peaceful morning at work, with only a handful of customers coming and going. As the time hit high noon, he began to wonder why no more guests were showing up. Even if the snack bar lost much of its popularity, it failed to explain why the majority of the morning handful did not instead show up at lunch time. As he sat behind the counter reading old newspaper, he periodically scanned the now-empty restaurant. Nozumu has gone out in the late morning as soon as Ervin showed up for work, which now left the bored Ervin totally on his own. He yawned in his chair as he looked around for something to pass the time with, and it was then that he realized that he has forgotten to turn on the television. Perhaps the passer-bys saw the black plasma screen and thought that the store was closed? Ervin doubted so, since the sign of "OPEN" hung clearly at the door. But still it was a blunder on his part, and he ought to correct it. He found the remote and turned on the wide, antique flat screen, with the intention of switching to a channel that redirected songs from the radio. But when the screen smoothly brightened with images and sounds, Ervin saw something far different from the common news or weather reports. In fact, every channel was usurped by the same looping announcement from the city hall.

"As of 1000 hours today, the London City Council has declared martial law over all districts in the municipality, in light of the sudden wave of civil unrest. Citizens are to return to their homes at the earliest time possible, and do their best to avoid the streets. The Coalition Police Service has been given full authority to deal with criminals as they deem appropriate, and anyone disobeying the 1700 curfew is potentially suspect. Please return to your homes and obey any patrolling CPS that might be conducting you. As of 1000 hours today..."

Has the Grail War so disturbed the peace in the settlement? Ervin wondered, and thought of what could possibly have happened. He realized that for someone so involved in the War, he was rather ill-informed. Once again he was reminded of how badly he missed having Archer at his side, and in turn his deploring regret over his falling out with Elise. Regardless, he was without neither strategist nor guardian now, facing not only ruthless nights, but also chaotic days. With the violent distractions of the mundane world around him, he had to be strong and focused, just like Archer was, and defend Brigit to the end.

For someone whom he has only known for a few weeks, the crimson-clad veteran was an unusual friend that came very close to heart. Ervin was fully aware of how strong of an inspiration the servant has been, for even now his mind's eye could see a mirage of Archer beyond the shop's glass, looking unshakable but very humane, as if encouraging him to stay strong, and believe in his own path. He looked into his servant's eyes, afraid to blink lest the hallucination should fade, but the endurance of his eyelids was deplorable, and for a second they squeezed shut.

Ervin pried his eyelids open almost frantically. When the image of Archer persisted, Ervin's eyes went wide, and his mouth spread into a wide grin. He stood up from his seat as Archer dematerialized through the window. At Ervin's exclamation of "Archer," the counter-guardian allowed himself a relieved chuckle. Far be it for the cool armsman to vocalize the obvious with comments such as "you're alive," he simply showed his gladness by believing his own eyes readily. As they took time to catch up on all that has happened since they've separated, the day quietly slipped into the evening. No other customers have shown up, nor has Nozumu returned; but those facts were simple footnotes in the light of a reunion.

"So once you've been subject to three command seals, you can't make a contract with anyone else?" Ervin was reluctant to accept that his accursed blunder at the bridge was irredeemable, and that Archer will still disappear. But true to his staunch nature, Archer only reaffirmed the facts exactly as they were. "That is correct." He replied. "Should a stray servant make a pact with another master, the master will receive command seals equal to the number of sigils that the previous master has not yet invoked when he lost the servant. In my case, that number is zero. As it is, only the Archer class's 'independent action' specialty is prolonging my existence, and but for a few more days at that."

"Damn, I've really screwed it up." Ervin ruefully sucked a small burst of air through his teeth. "But no use looking back now." He looked down and frowned at himself for a second before looking back up at Archer across the table. "You know what, mate? I think you'd best spend these few days however you want to, the War be damned. If you're feeling nostalgic, visit some more old places you care about. It's rare for a chap like you to not have any masters on your back, if you know what I mean..."

It was a rare day of chuckles for Archer, and he did so again. "Of course, now I get to do what I want - and I know exactly what that is."

"Brilliant." Ervin nodded; feeling glad that the big friend can find something fulfilling, even with things as they were.

"In the name of whomever Ervin chooses; give us three days, and we'll win the Grail."

"Archer...!" Ervin could not believe his ears.

"The first role of a counter-guardian is to intervene when the survival of the world is at stake. Having combined the story of Heinz and Brigit, it's very clear where the task lies. Not only do you share my goal, you are also my master. So I have no doubts."

Ervin didn't see this coming. It wasn't that he was surprised at Archer's renewed allegiance; rather it was unthinkable for him that anything could tip the balance in a matter of hours. Did Archer really intend to win the Grail in three days? How could it be done? Normally Ervin's first reaction would be to say "you don't have to do this," but having long since been infected by Archer's direct manners, he instead replied, "sure then, do we have a plan?"

"The most direct way to commune with the Root through the Grail has always been to sacrifice any six of the seven servants called out during a Grail War. When the Grail no longer diverts so much its energies to help maintain the servants' existence, it becomes a much more energized beacon for the Root itself."

Ervin palmed his chin as he did a brief, thoughtful roll with his large green eyes. "Right. But other than Rodman's Rider and yourself, all the other servants are still at large. We're talking about taking out four servants, two of which we've never seen yet, in just three days."

"But we aren't working on our own." Archer pointed out. Four servants in three days would be impossible for a single master. But if you are allied with Brigit, it can be done."

"All right mate, that's that then. Just tell me what we have to do." Ervin felt a sense of anticipation scratching beneath his skin, an eagerness to execute whatever daring strategy that Archer had in mind. But the lanky veteran did not give him a direct answer. "It's already nightfall, Ervin. In light of the city-wide lockdown, you have an excuse to close the store early and "return home" - an excuse you should make use of." Archer thus suggested that they begin their mission right away, and Ervin acknowledged the urgency with humour to lighten his own building suspense. "That's an awful excuse against the police who have been told to arrest wanderers after five. But at least Nozumu will buy it and not blame me for leaving early, and that was our concern in the first place."

They moved out onto the streets, with Archer keeping a vigilant watch for patrolling police. The officers on duty in the metro districts turned out to be sparser than expected, and they soon drew close to the neighbourhood of Brigit's safe house. "Jewry and Aldgate; we're almost there." Ervin quietly muttered as he took another hasty step in the lead, but Archer halted him with a clipped "wait." The servant took point to make sure there were no ambushes waiting near the intersection, but when he looked down the length of the intersecting street, he lowered his head in a grim pause. Bested by curiosity, Ervin walked up to Archer's side and looked in the direction of his gaze. He wasn't particularly quick to see the lying corpses in the dark, but as Archer quietly walked on, east and north down the length of Aldgate Street, Ervin grasped the repulsive reality. About a dozen men lay dead, with a number of Coalition Police officers amongst them. Ervin saw that they were skewered either through the chest, head, or neck, and at closer inspection he could see that chunks of missing flesh have been torn from their bodies. A few particular cases saw their hearts ripped out with bites taken out of them, and for a while Ervin knelt amidst everything, silent and still. Archer stood to the side and gave Ervin a minute of room as the shaken blonde forced himself to look directly at each gruesome detail. Ervin would not know that the red-clad servant could very well understand just how he felt. He would not know that Archer understood perfectly what was going through his mind; that far from letting the aftermath of Brigit's psychotic rampage sway him off his course, the unfolded scene only strengthened his resolve. Brigit needed to find peace from these very things, and Ervin was compelled to win the Grail for her, and give her that life of solace.

"Archer." Ervin stood up from the ground, quick enough to make himself dizzy but resolute enough to not stagger in turn. "Let's carry on."

Archer readily fell in line behind his master, careful to keep his welling empathy from becoming a distraction as he sharpened his mind for the encounters to come. Ervin made directly for Brigit's safe house, rather than searching the neighbourhood for her. Perhaps he felt it more important to be the one the she comes home to, but in truth Ervin himself did not have clear and distinct ideas about his next course of action; instead, he was driven by the gut instinct that always resided in him. Nevertheless Archer took stock in Ervin's instinct, perhaps somehow knowing what it might accomplish in a War for the Grail.

With the patrolling police now lying dead, they moved more quickly and openly, and soon came to the safe house's door. Ervin found it unlocked, and gently swung it open. "It might be dangerous now." Archer reminded him as he was about to enter, but Ervin simply nodded and moved ahead inside. The lights were completely turned off, and they found the living room empty. Archer stopped at the basement door between the kitchen and the living room, and cast Ervin an emotionless glance, asking silently if he should go down for a check, but Ervin shook his head. "Let's just turn on the lights and wait for her to return." He said quietly. "If she's already home then she'll come out when she's comfortable."

"Just hope that it doesn't take too long." Archer retorted as he switched on the ceiling light. "Time is against us-" he began, but his voice trailed off as he traced his twin swords and moved in a blur, just in time to intercept a double slash that materialized above Ervin out of thin air. The offending figure gave Ervin a savage kick with both feet as he hit the floor on his back. Ervin was sent sprawling and crashed face first onto the floor, and was slow in getting up. Archer stepped in between Ervin and the new arrival before moving in for a killing blow, and this brief detour gave the offender just enough time to roll up to his feet, raise his dual weapons, and match Kanshou and Byakuya strength for strength. Now on even footing with his opponent again, Archer drew back a step to study him.

Saber did not have his helmet now; his sickly-yellow, slit-pupil eyes looked at Archer in a steady, haunting gaze. Against all possibility, something made even the indomitable Archer flinch ever so slightly, and the red-clad swordsman's normally stoic fighting face betrayed a faint frown and an uncharacteristic bitten lower lip.

"Saber..." Archer cleared his discomfort with a deep breath and entered again into stance. For now, things demanded no more words, for Saber has once again made an attempt on Ervin's life. Regardless of Ervin's attachment to Saber's master and the campaign they were about to undertake for her sake, Archer's first loyalty in this War lay with Ervin, and Saber's manner of arrival has just now forced that loyalty to override all other considerations.

"An excellent turn of events..." The rest of Saber's musing was interrupted by Archer's flurry of attacks. The opening move was textbook but potent, with one of the two twin swords constantly forcing the opponent into vulnerable positions while the other sword took advantage of them with fatal strikes. The twin swords alternated roles seemingly at whim, giving testament to Archer's well-practiced ambidexterity. Lacking the agility to match Kanshou and Byakuya blow-by-blow, Saber relied instead on the efficient positioning of his shield, such that his shield arm would block two strikes at every exchange, leaving his sword arm free to exploit gaps or correct his own mistakes as needed. From their past armed encounter, Archer has already stored in his mind the blueprint of Saber's droplet-shaped, single-spike shield, and was aware of its ability to restore the user's od. But the one-handed sword he has not seen from before and he took an instant to analyze the weapon. Strangely enough, his mind could not lock on to the sword's structure and composition. Never before has Archer been unable to recreate a sword that he has laid eyes on, and such a surprise put a chink into his attacks. A sword-and-shield opponent should not have been quick enough to exploit so brief a gap, but Saber proved it otherwise. The mystic knight suddenly locked his sword against Kanshou, and the clashing weapons somehow became glued to each other. Saber then dragged Archer's left arm to the side, leaving Archer's chest open, and stabbed forward with his wicked shield spike. Archer saved himself with a timely Rho Aias and dismissed his twin words simultaneously as he leapt back. Before Saber could make for Ervin, Archer retraced his swords and launched them forward. The angle was such that it attacked the right side of the knight, who presumably wasn't fast enough to turn his shield around and block both projectiles. But Saber swung his own sword, suddenly now crackling with electric bolts and sparks, in a windshield-wiper arc in front of himself; and the ensuing physics defied common sense. Kanshou veered towards Saber's weapon, adhering to it and losing its momentum, while Byakuya was repelled away and flew wide. Still if nothing else, Archer's attack did buy enough time for him to get between Saber and Ervin once again. Things would have been back to square one, except it became clear now that the unmoving Ervin was in critical condition. The longer the fight dragged on, the worse for Ervin it would likely be.

"I see..." Both servants gritted under their breaths. Archer didn't know what sort of revelation Saber was referring to, but what he himself saw was the likely answer to why he couldn't trace Saber's new weapon. The sword-like thing he wielded in his right hand wasn't a sword in the traditional sense. It wasn't forged with blacksmith or magic, but rather a product of advanced technology. The weapon's theory of operation, should it be purely magical, would be difficult to contrive; but if one assumed it to be a product of science then it was easy to see how the sword worked. Rather than being a true sword, the weapon's real nature was more akin to that of an electromagnet. When charged up to adhere to hostile steel, the weapon made it very easy for Saber to parry or lock down incoming strikes. Of course the surprise gimmick in the match up was that Kanshou and Byakuya attracted each other by virtue of being natural opposites, which is what allowed them to be launched in a pincer style as a pair of homing missiles. By attracting Byakuya, Saber's weapon polarity would naturally repel Kanshou. In any case, Archer has studied the legends and lore of heroes before his lifetime, and he did not recall any character that fought remotely like this. Did this Saber come from the future? But then how was he...?

Archer focused again on the task at hand. Saber had to be defeated quickly, so he could take Ervin to safety. Now having lost the element of surprise, Saber no longer concealed the electrical nature of his weapon; a neatly curved arc of electricity now lay suspended down the length of the blade in a snaking coil, sending a jolt through Archer's right arm every time they clashed weapons. Even for someone as strong as Archer, the voltage was so high that it would stiffen his arm ever so slightly at every exchange; this minor stun effect negated Saber's lack of agility and allowed the futuristic knight to go on the offensive.

Archer's grudging respect for his enemy was a silent acknowledgement of the quality of the fight he was able to put up. On the surface, the outlandish knight, with his clunky, unpolished techniques that did not reflect any historical discipline, as well as his heavy reliance on the properties of his noble phantasms, labelled him as a user of brute force. But Archer understood there was more to it than that; for someone who was at once both less polished and less agile than his opponent, Saber was relying on his wits alone. Still, Archer has more or less figured out the youngster on a basic level. His style was an extreme take on the defend-and-counter strategy, turtling with his armour and od reserves until he creates a surprise for the opponent. Then he would exploit the opening and switch to an almost berserk attack sequence to attempt to finish the enemy off. He was certainly in his attack phase now, making heavy-handed clubbing attacks that repeatedly forced Archer to parry and thus suffer shocks, diminishing his chance to recover his stance.

But the red-clad veteran only suppressed a savage grin as he defended methodically, routinely taking in the stunning jolts from Saber's weapon. However cunning Saber was on defence, he was vulnerable once he goes on the attack. Little did Saber know that Archer had a surprise of his own: owing to a long-buried ordeal that Archer has experienced during his mortal life, his left arm was a reanimated limb that was grafted onto him artificially, one that was less in-step with the rest of his body. It was not enough to hinder his performance in any way, but more than sufficient to insulate the effect of the shocks from the rest of his nerves. Archer now parried the blows with alternating hands, faking the same stun effect when the hits landed against his left sword. Archer became the one waiting for an opening now, waiting for Saber to jump on a fake stun and stab forward with his shield spike. In that posture he would have no tools to block, so he would be left wide open. Such a chance came soon enough, with Saber predictably gluing his weapon against Byakuya, seemingly expecting a brief stun, and poising to ram his shield spike through Archer. Saber's move of drawing his own left arm back left him briefly open, and Archer stabbed forward with Kanshou. It was expected that Saber would try to carry his attack through, though before the hit could land he would be disembowelled and forced to use his shield defensively to regenerate. It would give Archer the lull for another nominally fatal hit, and another after that. Sure, this beast of a child could regain his life, but how many fatal strikes could he take in a row?

When things did not go exactly as planned, Archer began to plan ways to retreat. Not that he was afraid, but Ervin's life was too important to drag the duel on. What happened was that Saber never did stab forward with his shield spike. A split second before Kanshou buried itself in Saber's chest, Saber's magnetic sword disappeared. In its place he held a massive black sword that was a whole arm's width wider than Nightmare. As he took damage from Kanshou, a glowing crimson gauge shot up from the hilt to the blade's tip, bathing the sword in a bloody aura. Saber called out "Vitae" as he drew several steps back, using the two-handed sword in one hand as a crutch to barely prevent himself from falling over. Blood foamed in his mouth, but fearing Archer's follow-up, Saber did not wait for a full heal before counterattacking. Judging quickly that Saber could not be bursted down before getting off the swing, Archer grabbed Ervin's limp body and leapt to the farthest corner of the room. As far as Archer knew, the boy's new surprise could possibly bring down the house; in that split second the veteran erected Rho Aias, but again the attack never came.

Brigit's messy figure stumbled through the door. She needed not to bark any orders, for her proximity alone was enough to enforce the command seal that she used many days ago. Unable to lift his hand against Ervin, Saber dropped his sword in mid-swing and collapsed onto the floor. Archer moved into to make a kill, but Brigit stopped Archer's weapons with a slap of her lance. When Archer looked at Brigit with cold eyes; she lowered her head and faced the floor before kneeling down next to Saber, healing his unhealed wounds and helping him up. When Saber show her his poor attitude by closing his eyes and laying face up on the floor childishly with his arms spread, Brigit quietly moved on to Ervin. In moments Ervin stirred, and regained consciousness.

"Your servant's behaviour makes him a liability." Archer rang his remark coldly as he stood off to the side, to which Saber only snorted lightly mumbled something indistinct before falling silent again. "It's... all right." Ervin cut in as he sat up, buoyed by Brigit's propping arms. "The chap's given me plenty of warning." He continued, doing his best to defuse things down despite the nearly successful attempt on his life. "Here's what's happened. Archer's back with me, but he's got just three days' time left. Now if all of us move together as a team of four, we think that we just might gain enough ground to win the Grail for Brigit decisively." Ervin projected his gaze and voice straight at Saber; who although did not speak, returned Ervin a shaky look that could pass off as acknowledgement. When Ervin went on to say "I'm sure you'll be in with us on this one," Saber voiced no agreement, but Ervin took it on faith that the eccentric knight has demurred. All the while Brigit sat to the side, quietly grateful of Ervin's kind offer, never once stirring to make any superficial declinations. Despite Ervin's subconscious efforts to make the bloody stench and stains on her chin and outfit seem nothing more than a minor footnote, it seemed almost without catch that if she was to wish away her monstrosity, it would do everyone a great deal of good, perhaps to Ervin himself most of all.

When Ervin gave the floor over to Archer for a tactical briefing, the blonde mage felt inwardly relieved to see Saber showing some sign of genuine attentiveness as the red-clad veteran outlined their known and unknown rivals, and sketched a targeting priority.

"...are Berserker, Caster, Lancer, and Assassin. Of these rivals, Berserker is led by a psychopath that prefers daylight, while Caster is with someone you already know. We have no clear leads as to where the Assassin might be, but he is not someone we should specifically chase after. Either he will hide and miss the chance to exploit the chaos as the other servants are killed off, or he will emerge and come to us in the open, where he is disadvantaged by his class. That leaves Lancer, who has yet to show any sign at all. Hunting him down will be crucial, for we cannot allow him to ambush us at his leisure."

"You've left out one person." Brigit spoke with quiet earnest. Archer and even Ervin saw her point even as she began, but they listened intently if only to make sure she hasn't thought of something they haven't already. "My old servant, the former Rider, is quick-witted, battle-hardened, and is routinely several moves ahead of his rivals before they are even aware. I don't think we can afford to ignore him."

"Of course, but the circumstances are against him." Archer answered readily. "You know better than I that his magecraft is limited. It might take him some effort to find a mundane means to circumvent all the police that circle the streets; and our goal is to win decisively before he can cut in and use his knowledge of you against us. He is not one of the key servants whom we must face directly on the way to the Grail, and we should work that to our advantage."

"What's our first move?" Saber's apparent eagerness earned an emphatic nod from Ervin, who did not stop to question whether his attitude could in fact be trusted after all that's happened.

"Two things at once. Ervin and I will start by confronting his sister, who no doubt is using their home residence as her base. Meanwhile, you need to go with Brigit and track down Lancer posthaste."

"I say we reverse the teams." The knight yapped almost like a spoiled boy. Archer could not help but throw out a hard, furrowed stare - was the young knight purposefully trying to antagonize him? He'd better not be, Archer thought, for even with Ervin's stance on things, his own patience for childish obstinacy was quite limited.

But Saber went on for an explanation of his own. "Think about it. His sister has taken care of him for years, and knows his habits in and out. Being anticipated is a huge disadvantage in combat, which makes your master a poor choice for the task. On the other hand, Elise and I have never crossed swords. She would think us weak after besting Brigit once, but she really knows nothing about us. Her servant seems to be a user of clairvoyance and curses, and our relative opacity to her is to our advantage."

Archer looked impassive and only turned to Ervin, ready to echo his master's approval or lack thereof. "So be it." Ervin decided rather quickly. "Time's against us, and there's no room for quibbles." Ervin stood up before Saber and poured out a heartfelt nod; "I know he's doing me a huge favour, sparing me the pain of confronting my own family."

"Right." Saber blandly replied at length. "Of course."


	13. Campaign: Army's Fruition

Author's note: Fixed a loophole in this chapter that affected the logic of the story. My apologies.

***Chapter Begins Here***

The morning patrols to the tea shop were better carried out on foot, as any vehicle might inevitably draw attention to Aria and Heinz after repeated trips day after day. As far as they knew, keeping that principle in mind and blending into the crowd has been enough to keep them safe during daytime; but on this particular morning, they have caught on to more than enough warning signs to keep them on maximum alert. As soon as they entered the metropolis zone, a police car could be seen every few blocks along the way, instilling a sense of caution into the gazes and footsteps of passing citizens.

When they got off the shuttle at Cable and Cannon Street Road near St. George's Square, several kilometres away from the shop, Aria saw the no-brainer signs of a neighbourhood lockdown. The police has plugged every exit around a three-building apartment complex, complete with perimeter tapes. A score of armed officers dotted the area in a number of armoured cars, with a few of their personnel conducting the civilians around the bus stop out of the district in three orderly directions. As they shifted themselves smoothly into the timid crowd that was being herded out eastwards, Heinz noted that subsequent shuttles entering the area were being order by armoured cars to turn back. An exchange of glances and silent expressions between servant and master resonated their mutual understanding that the police were having trouble putting down whatever gang that has barricaded itself within the nearby complex, and they might well be losing control of the situation. As the way things were they didn't dare to draw pointless suspicion by whispering or talking, so Aria couldn't be sure if Heinz intended to infiltrate the crime scene as he did before and loot equipment. In either case they were unarmed, so Aria put a bit extra into sharpening her eyes and ears to ready herself if Heinz wanted to design a new mission on the fly. The repressive atmosphere and the nervous crowd, coupled with the city's iconic morning fog, built up a numbing tension in Aria's head; when the sound of sniper fire whipped into crowd it took a full second for her combat instincts to kick in, ducking low with Heinz and hiding her profile in a sea of panicking and screaming heads.

"TERRORIST SNIPER!" An officer fighting on the front line shouted the obvious so loudly that it sent the evacuating civilians into panic. Chaos erupted first in the eastern crowd, then the citizens being evacuated to the north and west also caught on to the wave of hysteria. The officers in charge of evacuation completely lost control, though fortunately the herds ran away from the combat rather than towards it. At once wanting a safer position from the trampling all around them as well as the gangsters' deplorable gunfire, Aria and Heinz shifted with the crown eastwards down the street, out of the crime scene. Still there were police cars parked at every several blocks, so they spoke to each other in a hushed tone as they moved ahead towards the tea shop.

"I wonder where is the coalition police trying to project its power." Heinz mused thoughtfully. It can't be that all the police vehicles we've seen ALL have something to do with that complex back at the park. A mobilization of this size can only mean two things - major public event, or widespread civil unrest."

"Bet on two." Aria replied under her breath as she devoted most of her attention in looking around for leads and dangers as she led the way eastwards towards the tea shop. More than ever now, it was important to get to that TV and watch the news, just so that they could know exactly what was happening. Aria's mind crawled with a number of thoughts, and she sorted them out by nailing down the key words that came with each. Police. Chaos. Opportunity. Threats. Next move. Grail. "What now?" She asked the servant, slipping into the alley-speak that often accompanied her fight-or-flight instincts. "Friggin cops make it hard to get 'round. Y'know this ain't good..."

At a light jab from Heinz, she knew to turn her head quickly, first to his face and then towards where he had been glancing. Her guts almost twisted inside her as she tensed and nearly forgot to breath when she caught sight of the red-clad servant from the night before. Knowing better than to stare at the swordsman's back, Aria followed Heinz's example and walked right past the tea shop from across the street as casually as she could. As she detoured with Heinz far away from the shop, for a moment indifferent to their course, Aria began to realize just how close of a call it might have been. That heroic spirit, likely a Saber-class, appeared to be looking through the glass panel of the tea shop. Had she made any sign of staring at him from behind his back, he would have noticed her in the reflections on the glass. Even from across the street, the presumably sharp-eyed war spirit would recognize her face instantly - at which point it would be unpleasant to extrapolate what would happen next.

"Shop's no good today." Heinz spoke as they stopped along a smaller, slightly more peaceful street. "But the shop is our listening post." Aria growled, mostly upset at the host of new variables that the new day has so far presented. "Now we've gotta find another joint to watch the news in. And we need to figure out what the police are up to, as fast as we can."

"Right. We go back to the street and maybe look for a bar." Heinz said as they turned around and walked back towards the north bank. "Gotta hope they're airing the right channels too." Aria remarked as she followed closely behind, rather wary now of any hostile servants that might suddenly spawn in their face like the red swordsman did. But what caught her attention first were the large signposts that the coalition police have begun to erect along major streets. The curious amongst the crowds huddled around them to read what was clearly an official announcement; but soon many of them began to disperse in distress, each scurrying with hurried steps in their own directions. It was still hard for Aria to read the sign through the bubbling crowd, but fortunately Heinz stood half a head taller than the rest, and saw the announcement perfectly:

"As of 1000 hours today, the London City Council has declared martial law over all districts in the municipality, in light of the sudden wave of civil unrest. Citizens are to return to their homes at the earliest time possible, and do their best to avoid the streets. The Coalition Police Service has been given full authority to deal with criminals as they deem appropriate, and anyone disobeying the 1700 curfew is potentially suspect. Please return to your homes and obey any patrolling CPS that might be conducting you."

"What does it say?" Aria kept her voice low, and tried not to appear overly curious or concerned in the presence of nearby police officers. To this Heinz simply made a subtle 'move out' hand sign, hinting to the master that this wasn't the best place to talk. So Aria walked along quietly, following her servant as he calmly sought a discreet location where they could talk without fear of surveillance. They moved southwards towards the north bank, stopping at a small, private-run dock on the shore of the Thames. The circumstances in the city has made the humble open water-park rather unpopulated, but even here a white-painted police car stood out nearby as the most poignant landmark.

"What now?" Aria growled quietly, but nearly choked midway when Heinz stiffly put his arms around her. Wasn't the damn clumsy boy trying to look inconspicuous a second ago? His embracing motion was so stiff that it might even look like assault to the police nearby. What the hell was he doing? Aria thought fast, and decided that the best way to clear his new appearance as an assault criminal was to respond to him in kind. Wrapping herself around Heinz, Aria pasted her forearms vertically down the length of his back, with both hands frantically spread wide and reaching just short of his neck. She put the side of her face flatly against his chest with her short-haired scalp brushing against his chin, as she brought herself to the real point of the whole dance - to angle her gaze at the police car, to see if the cops inside would come out to question them. To her relief, they did not.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Her remark was meant to sound cold, but it came out like a flushing protest, mirroring the fuzzy feeling in her cheeks. "Nothing ... unusual." He replied. Despite the slight nervousness mixed in Heinz's voice, there was clear purpose in his low-key response. "Surely there's nothing strange if a couple decided to rent a rowing boat, and drift away out of earshot?"

Oh. Aria realized. So that's what you were up to. But of course - why else would you... She clipped the thought short inside her head, realizing that it was none other than herself who needed to understand that now's not the time. She then tried to keep a professional outlook inside her as she walked Heinz to the renting cabin while holding hands, passing her cash card to her sweetheart so he could look like the one who was paying. It was all part of the tactical operation.

But then there was the shortness of breath, the fast-beating heart, and the flushed cheeks. Those things were real for her.

***Scene Break***

Heinz had a way with vehicles, even if it was something such as the simple boat they floated in. Almost impossibly, the boat moved upstream at a speed that almost precisely cancelled out the flowing of the water, and they tethered at the same point relative to the shore. The servant's rowing was so effortless, that the physical exertion did not detract him at all from his complex thoughts and speech.

"That's right. They're locking down the whole city, claiming the escalation of massed gang violence."

Aria frowned in concern. "The police are butting into our war. This would stack a lot of stuff against us."

"Right." Heinz nodded. "Tell me what you think."

"Well first off, this mage war isn't exactly legal. Masters and servants running in the night trying to kill each other are going to be totally at odds with the cops. But their night patrols will probably hurt us more than the other teams, since the police don't know how to fight their magic but they know how to fight our guns. They can't catch a dematerializing phantom, but they can catch us and surround us on foot. All in all, they end up restricting our mobility more than they restrict that of the others."

"Right. It's true that while standing against the police, we can't properly operate anywhere. But..." Heinz's eyes flashed a barely-contained excitement as he turned the problem on its head. "What if we PASS OFF AS the police, and operate where we please?"

"...that's insane." Aria has wrapped her head around the idea, but it still left wondering how did she not see this move earlier. Meanwhile, Heinz continued to expound on the strategy. "For the usual servant, they way they conceal themselves is by dematerializing. But while phased out, they cannot attack. That is the downside of phasing out versus simple disguise and infiltration. If we can secure the means to attack while actively hiding, we can accomplish with strategy where magecraft falls short."

"So what would you have us do? How are we gonna pass off as cops?"

Heinz saw the opportunity for another lecture on military doctrine. "An established organization, however incompetent, must operate as a network. To insert yourself into that network is the key to infiltration. For our purposes, the plan is actually rather simple." He paused briefly for didactic effect before continuing. "Our starting point is the radio in our stolen vehicle. I have already rigged it for zero transmit and full receive. We will listen into their communications, and enter with our disguises where they become desperate for reinforcements."

"And we kill them?" Aria did not understand. "How's that gonna achieve anything?"

"No. We exploit their gaps. Let's say if they encounter other servants; we'd do well to watch and learn."

"Infiltration?" Aria still felt as though she was in the dark. Sure, helping the police might improve their standing with them slightly, but how will the goons react to the vehicle theft from before? She honestly did not see where this was going, and continued to ponder.

"Remember..." Heinz was getting visibly excited over his own grand schemes. "The land is your warehouse. The world is your forge. You wage war, by creating unlimited weapons..."

Get to the point, smartass. Aria growled silently. Still, she held her tongue, knowing that silence was always the best way to draw a lecturer into spilling the beans.

"We face an army of servants, so our doctrine should be anti-army. To that end, the only universal anti-army strategy is to forge an army of your own, and engage in war."

"You're gonna use the police as our, uh, soldiers?" Even when she can grasp the concept of that word, Aria still felt it strange to let it roll off her tongue. But of course she knew that this was no joke; somehow Heinz has some kind of plan, and it was best if she did her best to understand it before they deploy to the next mission.

"Right. And we'll employ them without them knowing. They don't need to approve of us, because they won't even know of us." As Heinz started to row back towards the shore, he finished his lecture by tying things together in his master's head. "Think of the past weeks as a single campaign. We began by training you, which supplied our army with a commander. Then we seized munitions, which supplied our army with weapons. Then we acquired a vehicle, which supplied our army with armour. Now it is time to acquire recruits, to supply our army with the needed manpower to take shape."

"Oh hell, Heinz... you're crazy." Aria exhaled, and Heinz only looked on with silent acknowledgement. Weary of the cops who were no doubt watching the lone rowing boat as it came ashore, Aria slowly moved towards Heinz, and snuggled close to him. Just keep it cool, she tried to tell herself. Look natural.

"Crazy... and..." She mumbled, briefly spacing out.

***Scene Break***

The retreat from the city centre became progressively smoother the further they went. With the majority of the police deployed to the city centre, The last dozen kilometres towards the East End saw no patrols as the desolate streets of the slums cleared itself of fearful locals hours before nightfall. The master and her servant left the shuttle at the humble terminal and made the last few blocks on foot, meeting neither police nor civilian as they returned to the safe house. With Heinz in lead, they went directly to the stashed van at the back of the house. As the servant switched on the electronic receivers and positioning modules, Aria sifted through the stack of weapons in the back seat, performing maintenance cleaning and reloads in the dim lighting with instinctive, mechanical efficiency. The radio buzzed with scattered chatter, with hourly updates checking in from every district. A few armed conflicts have broken out to the western and northern brinks, but nothing that were worth acting upon.

"CONTACT-" A sudden shout fizzed out of the speaker, followed by static. Aria immediately turned to Heinz, loudly cocking the HK-MII assault rifle she just finished loading, wordlessly asking if this was the cue to move out. The servant bit his lips with a quick nod, and the engines silently came to life. Unnaturally smooth just like the rowing boat at the docks, the driving was so uncannily steady that it almost felt as though the van remained stationary while the world moved backwards underneath its wheels. The hot spot was back downtown where they just came back from, but in the night the streets have cleared. With the unit positioning screen open to the side of the dashboard, Heinz carefully took detours around each green dot on the screen from several blocks out, rolling forward discreetly with an eerily silent engine. Still to be safe, Aria slid open both side doors, strapped her rifle tightly on her back, and readied a Panzerfaust-G5 anti tank rocket. If hostile contacts were ever made, she would be ready to carry out a complete-kill drive-by, destroying the hostile van along with its radio and crew before they could report. Fortunately no such things were necessary, and they were the first coalition vehicle to arrive on the target destination.

Having been following only the radar map and its pictorial topography, Heinz did not bother with the actual name of the street they were on. All that he did was take one last look at the vectors of the green dots closing in before exiting the vehicle with a rifle in hand. He made a gesture to Aria that he would take point ahead, as he stepped up front and aimed his scope and gaze at his flanks. Sighting no hostiles, he gave his master the clearance to move off the vehicle to begin a general sweep. "E.T.A. twenty minutes?" Aria asked under her breath. "Ja." Heinz answered. "That's before the first of the three police vans arrive." Understanding they didn't have much time, Aria followed closely behind her servant, acting as spotter in whichever direction that Heinz turned sideways from.

Whatever gruesome slaughter that took place here was already over. The block was strewn with a dozen brutally slain bodies, some civilian and others police. A clattering sound came out from the encircled yard in the hollow-square apartment complex nearby; and upon seeing a small figure dart out from behind the garbage bin Heinz quickly closed the distance and seized the delinquent. Aria lagged behind slightly in a more cautious attack-move, lest any hidden hostiles flank Heinz from hiding. When they cornered the shaking child, Aria saw that he could not be past his late teens. Taking the cue to leave the interrogation to Heinz, Aria led the way back to the van through the empty streets. Shoving the shaking whelp inside with a gun to his head, Heinz took the backseat as Aria took the controls. She was about to start the engine, when Heinz stopped her, signalling her to wait on standby. Aria nodded, albeit in confusion, as she glued her eyes to the E.T.A. display on the radar. Twelve minutes.

Meanwhile Heinz could see the child's eyes darting frantically around the backseats, likely looking for something that he could use to break out of his predicament. At this Heinz simply ripped off the child's rough headband and blindfolded him with it, so that blindness would keep him more behaved. The hyperventilating whelp was fighting a losing battle with his own fear and apprehension, although for a young civilian his composure was already something commendable.

"How did you kill them?" Heinz began with a loaded question to send the small boy on the defensive.

"You're not police." The teenager mustered his shaking nerves and evaded the question.

"Right, or you'd be dead." Instead of wasting time with bluffing that it wasn't so, Heinz simply turned the tables back on boy. "Now confess. How did you kill those people?"

"It was obviously not me." The child seemed to calm slightly as the conversation went on, perhaps because he had some hope of weaselling his way out with his tongue. "You won't believe this, but whatever killed those people wasn't human. Her eyes were blood red and the glow could be seen from metres away..."

"Is that so?" Heinz fished his hands into the delinquent's pocket and fished out a trapezoid-shaped razor mounted on a neat handle, a trademark tool of pickpockets. "You are a thief amongst the bodies of dead police, the sole survivor on the crime scene, out in the streets past curfew during lockdown. Tell me then, how can the killer not be you?"

"That's your knife, not mine. It's got your prints on it." The boy gave a knee-jerk response, to which Heinz only chuckled in cold amusement. Taking off the blindfold, Heinz shook the knife in front of the boy's face while holding it up with a gloved hand. Not giving the whelp any more time to think, he seized the delinquent by his chin and turned his head towards the radar panel in the front seat. Three flashing green dots were crawling towards the centre, and Heinz lightly explained what it meant.

"See the E.T.A.?" The real police will arrive in five minutes. Have fun getting away." Even as the whelp digested the facts, Heinz shoved him out of the vehicle. "Or better yet, try your luck with your story when they come." His move to close the sliding door was quickly impeded by the delinquent's imploring forearms, which were then caught in a painful squish. The boy winced but did not cry out, forcing the door back open and made an attempt to drag himself back inside. Instead of kicking his face or grinding his grasping hands under heavy boots, Heinz only hoisted his rifle and lightly shoved it against the child's neck, a balanced gesture relatively devoid of arrogance but cold enough to not display weakness.

"Please." The child's voice was still rather subdued given his visible panic. "Tell me what to do."

Heinz said nothing as he cast his master a nodding glance. Quickly Aria and Heinz went off the car and changed seats, as the young boy limped on board. With barely enough time to escape the scene, Heinz took a quick look at the positional gaps between the approaching police vehicles, plotted a course in his mind, and stepped on the gas.

***Scene Break***

Amid the patient's jaw-clenching winces, Aria dabbed the child's bruises with swabs of harsh antiseptics from the onboard first-aid kit. The van has stopped a dozen blocks north of where the young boy came on board, and Heinz spoke to him from the front seat in a tone somewhat less threatening than before.

"What's your name?"

"Paul Russels."

"Do you have a home?" Heinz asked stiffly. The question was phrased such that it would be ambiguous to the boy's background. Even if this child had a home, so long as he despised it somehow, as was the case with many delinquents, then the subversive question might still goad his emotions to answer 'no.' Such an answer would then reinforce the idea to himself that either his bridges were burnt, or he had nothing to lose.

"Yes." The boy sounded rather defensive of his reply. Though it wasn't the answer Heinz was looking for, the tactician servant smelled a way to leverage the subject nevertheless. "What if your home, and the things you want to protect, are being threatened by magic and monsters? What would you do?"

"What? What do you..." Paul's attitude was initially a mix of cynicism and confusion, but both sentiments subsided in a flash. After all he has just witnessed an absolute banshee rip through a dozen hapless fools with a burning lance; he was thus in no position to dismiss a question just because it sounded like a fairy tale. "So who was that lady? You know, don't you?"

Neither of the young men were directly answering each other's questions, but the conversation was heading just where Heinz wanted it. "By seeing her, you already know too much, enough to warrant certain gangs into silencing you. Your encounter with that girl has placed you at the gateway of a deadly, occult underground. If I tell you anymore, there'll be no turning back."

Heinz knew full well that he was tapping into a particularly dark recess of War; for playing on the young mind's thirst for the unknown was the universal code for filling an army's ranks. As was the case with many intelligent young men, Paul had a restless curiosity and an irrational urge to live on the edge. In history, this was the attitude that made willing conscripts out of brash boys, an attitude that has been exploited by many governments and their propaganda. And here was Heinz, repeating the very thing that he has witnessed, understood, practiced, and despised, all for the sake of 'necessity'... the invalid excuse of every leader in every war... But a flickering glance at his master quelled his doubts. His master has a good-hearted wish that needed ruthlessness to realize. Whatever deed that was beneath the master's character, fell to him. It was after all his expertise, and so long as Aria can find meaning in tomorrow, he didn't mind bearing the guilt of putting it to use.

"You choices are simple." Heinz snapped out of his self-reflection and continued the negotiation. "Leave now and forget all that you saw, or commit yourself to our employment and learn what it was that you saw."

Paul's decision did not take too much of an inner struggle. Of course he wanted to know. Heinz's tone was of one that offered a job of some kind, and Paul was certainly sharp enough to pick it up. Still, not wanting to be totally led by the nose, the younger boy boldly asked for his own terms.

"If you employ me, how is the pay?"

Here was theoretically a great chance to convince the boy that he was actually the winner of the deal, by promising him what he demanded. However Heinz was not so foolish as to promise something he could not give, lest the war drags on fruitlessly long enough to cause resentment. "Being an underground organization, our resources are acquired on the fly and aren't always liquid. But we will guarantee your safety during your stay with us. Given the unrest in this city and the things that are unfolding in the shadows, our protection could be worth your life. Furthermore, whenever loot does come by, we won't let you go empty-handed if there is anything to spare. Lastly, telling you what is really going on around you is also a service. You first payment is effectively the answers to all your questions."

"But I need cash." The child's tone wasn't one of greed, but rather one of vague urgency. What did he need the pay for, Heinz wasn't particularly concerned about; and how to give him that pay was not a top concern either. "You might come across cash while working with us. There's always a chance, but I do not promise more than that. If you're not happy, you don't have to be here." Heinz gestured towards the van door, giving off the vibes that he really cared little about having a new recruit.

"All right, fine then." Paul relented, most likely giving in to his grim curiosity. "Is there some kind of contract?"

"No, but once you know what's going on, our business becomes yours whether you like it or not."

***Scene Break***

Heinz and Aria have not given him the full rundown of the Grail War, for the crafty boy could not be trusted with the temptation of granted wish. All that he was told, was that the true targets were other teams possessing dangerous magic and combat abilities, and that besting them all was the only sure way to prevent a curse from destroying a great deal of the city, amongst other things. Thanks to Paul's own curiosity and marvel at the concept of magecraft, all that it took to convince him for now was to have Aria cloak herself in a sheet of nearly harmless flaming sparks, giving off a light show that looked quite otherworldly to the layman. By playing on the human fallacy of taking stock in the exotic, Paul's own fascination would keep himself in line…. for now.

The van lurked in a corner that was reasonably far away from other green dots on the radar, such that their paths would be unlikely to cross. There they waited, for a sign of trouble in the city to crop up again so they could masquerade again as law enforcement. It was not long before the familiar sound of scattered screams and static came through the system once more, this time coupled with explosions. The army of three mobilized immediately, with the new private having never once been tested in battle. As Aria loaded and cleaned the guns in the back of the driving car, she could not help but wonder how her tactician could best put this child to use without getting him killed or badly maimed.

************************************************************************Chapter End******************************************

****************************************************************Servant Stat Unlocked: XIV Rider**********************************

Class: Rider (Former Grail War)

Master: Brigit De Danann / Mirai Aria

True Name: Heinz Guderian

Sex: Male

Height/Weight: 180cm, 70kg

Alignment: Lawful Neutral

***Parameters:***

Strength: D

Magical Energy: D

Endurance: D

Luck: B - A+

Agility: A+

Noble Phantasm: B - A

***Class Abilities:***

Independent Action (Fake): A+: Servant can remain in this world indefinitely even without a Master. This is an ability granted by the Holy Grail.

Riding: B: Most mounts can be handled with above average skill. However, cannot ride the likes of Phantasm Races such as Demoniac Beast and Holy Beast-rank creatures.

***Skills:***

Modern Warfare: A: with his extensive knowledge of modern machines and weapons, as well as their related magecraft, Rider receives a rank up on luck when armed with guns. Moreover, as his fighting style is modern, endurance and strength are obsolete parameters. Instead, the power of his defence scales with agility, and the accuracy of his offence scales with luck.

Call of Duty: B: even without the effect of command seals, Rider will not betray a master that he has enlisted under.

Military Tactics: A: a planning skill that is normally effective only in massed combat, a rank of A will apply its benefits to smaller engagements as well. In addition, the servant's tactical vision is no longer limited to a single battle, and has the capacity to orchestrate an entire campaign.

***Noble Phantasms:***

Ritterkreuz mit Eichenlaub: coincidentally translated as 'Rider's Cross,' the military honours he received during his lifetime fixed him into the Rider class. He has repurposed his obsolete icon into a large shield, which will periodically grant him a single-action, armour-saving effect against most attacks.

Rank: C

Type: Anti-Unit

Range: 1

Target: 1

Achtung-Panzer!: a book-type noble phantasm, this is the original copy of the famous military handbook that he authored in his life. Translated copies and spin-offs of this book were used by both the Western Coalition and the Eastern Union during the Omega Wars, which raised the status of this already-infamous relic into a notorious weapon that claimed millions of lives. For Rider himself however, his original copy has become a journal that continuously records the latest developments in combat technology. With this noble phantasm, all of Rider's technology-sensitive skills will remain up-to-date with whatever war he is in.

Rank: B

Type: Anti-Army

Range: EX

Target: Self

Vehicle Phantasm: to other servants of his class, Heinz's opinion of mounts would seem unorthodox. He insists that a Rider's best mount isn't always the biggest, or the fastest, or the most hard-hitting. Rather than keeping a fixed mount as his strongest weapon, that role is fulfilled by whichever vehicle he commandeers on the fly. Any mechanized steed under Rider's command functions as an A-rank noble phantasm, and will raise his luck, agility, and noble phantasm parameters by one rank so long as he remains onboard. Any onboard guns will fire with power equivalent to a noble phantasm of rank E, with heavier weapons being proportionally more powerful.

Rank: A

Type: Anti-Castle

Range: Varies

Target: Mount


	14. Fate: Saber

The streets have been empty where they walked; the desolate whistling of midnight wind provided the only relief from the tension of silence. Having split up with Archer and Ervin near Gray's Inn Gardens at the northwest edge of town, Brigit and her servant were now free to continue west in quicker bursts of nimble dashes on their own. It turned out to be a good idea after all to leave it to Saber's team to confront Caster; for the Cambrian residence was located in a small neighbourhood far out from the metropolis, towards the old Camelot House Hotel, a place that would have taken Ervin prohibitively long to travel to on foot.

Saber drew another deep breath to feed his parched magic circuits as he took point ahead. The ambient atmosphere felt sparse in his mouth, completely different from the mana-rich air that he knew so well from his own life and times. As he scouted on, a few paces ahead of his master, he knew well that his awareness wasn't in the sharpest shape. But that was okay - he could address that by getting Brigit to maintain a strong stance, while he himself walks in the fore appearing less prepared. He would likely attract a hit if an ambush came their way, but that would prove a most reliable warning.

He was nearing his wits' end. But what does it matter?

He continued to strategize to himself as he went forward, as though keeping a single-track mind somehow kept him sane. The meagreness of the air he breathed was a nagging reminder of his greatest handicap in this place and time. Unlike the land that he knew, this place has much less airborne mana to diffuse into his blood through wounds. This then, made it harder for him to use his own injuries as a resource in battle. But still, his opponents are from an age that isn't yet aware of the prospect of using magecraft this way at all, so he wasn't completely stripped of his advantage.

There was a lack of police patrol so far out from the metropolis, so their way was unimpeded. Following Ervin's directions to head due west along Oxford Street, and look for the lone cadet-blue house below Cumberland Gate, master and servant found their mark in less than half an hour's time since parting with Ervin. The residence before them looked just barely on generous side, with a moderate front yard behind a modest but elegantly painted wooden fence surrounding the small estate. From the other side of the barrier, they could not see if the light inside was on or off; and Saber gestured to Brigit to slow down and tread lightly as they approached the property from behind.

The first reaction, out of common sense, would have been to avoid passing by the front entrance. But both Brigit and Saber knew full well that as the enemy was Caster, it was impossible in any case for them to approach without being sensed. Deciding stealth as futile, Saber circled to the front and was about to enter through the gate, when Brigit grabbed his arm with her small hands, as a signal to stay put. The servant froze in silence, and waited for the master's opinion on how to proceed.

"No presence." She whispered, as if her regular small voice wasn't quiet enough. Saber too, has noted that the lights were off. "Any trip wires?" He asked, referring to the possibility that Elise might have left behind a bounded zone around the house that might alert her should anyone enter within. Depending on whether the empty house was a deliberate trap, Saber would plan their next move accordingly.

"With Caster's clairvoyance, we don't need to enter his bounded zone for him to notice us." Brigit supplied Saber with a knowledgeable answer, but she herself was slow to fully see what this knowledge actually implied. Since that Caster servant was a user of some kind of future-telling magecraft, should someone draw close to his zones, he would be able to 'foresee' it even before they entered. Of course Brigit understood that; but why didn't she remind Saber of this before they came so close the house? It was probably too late now that they have drawn so close. Even if they haven't felt themselves entering any magical zones, Caster might well have foreseen their entrance already. Saber sighed lightly, and mulled things over as they were. He saw that with their element of surprise now possibly negated, every moment spent idle will give the opponent more time to set up a killing strategy. The natural counter response was to move fast.

"We'll have to gamble a bit then." Saber motioned his master to move in as he dematerialized through the house door. He felt the nauseating weight of responsibility as he called shots on his master's behalf. Brigit was a knowledgeable being, but her strategic wits weren't the most acute. Her martial prowess made her a great servant back when she was still Lancer, but her tendency to lapse into being a follower was proving problematic as a master. Truly, some of her traits made her quite vulnerable. "If they left the house open for us..." Saber explained as he unlocked the door from the inside, "then we might as well break in and take a gleaning of Elise's magical studies. You never know what you might find."

Brigit nodded and followed Saber into the house, both of them scanning the rooms for any artefacts that might be of interest. The interior of the house itself was of the same cookie-cutter architecture as every other similar-sized dwelling of this age. Just like their own safe house, they would enter the front door to find the living room to their left, and a modest kitchen beside the basement door to their right. Past these chambers directly ahead would be the stairs to the second floor. Nothing in the construction of the house itself seemed particularly devious, so the pair of invaders boldly carried out their aimless looting.

Their first stop was the basement; Saber palmed on the lights as he led the way downstairs. The cemented chamber was rather spacious, with various exercise equipment lying about, mostly devoted to swordsmanship training. Enthralled for a second by the rack of master-crafted swords standing against the far wall, Saber briefly forgot about Brigit as he went over and toyed with each weapon, marvelling obsessively over their exotic designs. One arming sword had a short katara fixed to the hilt; another saw-like longsword sword was constructed piecewise by a chain of droplet-shaped razors; even more absurd was a half-sword, half-cudgel long weapon that had four blade edges instead of two at ninety-degrees apart, with the blade separated lengthwise in two sections by a second hilt. As Saber toyed with each weapon, wringing juices out of his mind to picture how these things could be put into practice, he began to believe that their true value simply lay in confusing the enemy. While your enemy is distracted with trying to understand your weapon, it was easy to strike at him where he does not expect...

Wait. Where did Brigit go?

A knot formed in the knight's throat as he realized just who the 'distracted enemy' might be at this very moment. He did an about-face from the racks and backtracked his way through the basement from where he came. Was it just him dazed by the sudden shock, or did this basement seemed larger and messier than it was before? Time seemed to slow to a trickle as Saber felt a slight vertigo from his racing mind. He could deal with being outmanoeuvred, but he was not used to being out-thought. He scanned the room frantically; there were no immediate signs of trap doors on the floor, nor hidden chambers along the walls; nothing extraordinary littered the floors beyond punching bags and bucklers. Several suits of lady's armour lay about in pieces; there were several pairs of thick-soled plate-linked greaves, linked thigh-plating that anchored heavy strip-plated steel long-skirts, reptilian-looking bracers that all but totally masked the daintiness of the wrists below...

Damnation! The small knight cursed to himself as he gripped the side of his distracted head. No time now for inspecting loose gear. He had to find Brigit. His breathing was becoming laboured, and his focus was slipping. He took off the helmet tied at the back of his massive girdle and jammed it over his head. The compulsion did at least calm him a great deal as he continued his search. The basement door from where they came was still slightly ajar in the same manner that Brigit has left it in behind her when she came down, so there was at least the possibility that she hasn't gone back up. He continued past the stairs, over to the other side of the basement, and saw nothing. But when he walked to the far end of this empty side, he found a well-concealed sliding door inside a pocket under the support structure of the basement stairs.

With his clarity returned to him, Saber reassessed the architecture of the basement before moving forward. The level he was on was built similar to the cookie-cutter basement of this age, but unlike the standard O-shaped construction featuring a steep flight of stairs leading up to the living room at the base of the 'O,' a gentler, longer staircase split the chamber into two halves, giving it an U-shaped construction instead. Hidden on the left tip of the 'U,' underneath the first flight of stairs, was an inconspicuous handle-less door that hid another flight of stairs leading further down.

Calling fourth Nightmare from his girdle, he hurried below with his weapon tightly in hand.

***Scene Break***

The second level was built like the first, but much of the chamber was occupied by a system of bizarre, though not obviously dangerous contraptions. The centrepiece was a clear tennis-ball container arrested by a skeletal iron frame. A simple tubular mechanical pump, seemingly operated by a hand crank, opened its mouth right above the tennis-ball container. A more careful look at the iron frame holding the tennis tube revealed motors at key joints, which would swing the tube like an artificial pendulum once they become powered. Cabling led out from the motors, crawling along the floor until they reached a small computer at the corner of the room.

Saber found Brigit sitting in the center of the room, in front of the whole machine. Her back was turned towards the staircase, and Saber could not see her face.

But at least he found her. That had to count as something positive; it had better. Not wanting to startle the master, Saber gently tapped the side walls until it seemed to have caught her attention. Brigit began to turn around.

"Ah-!"

She summoned her lance as she spun around, briefly spooked despite her servant's best efforts. Saber however, was simply relived to see the meekly steady expression on his master's face. "Milord." He nodded lightly before taking off his helmet for a deep breath of the basement's stale air. "What's happening?"

Brigit pointed to the device before her as Saber went forward. "What is this thing?" He asked, but realized that since Brigit has always been baffled by electronics, she wasn't likely to have an answer. Being no less curious about it himself, the knight went over to the computer, and found a screen full of code conveniently open, which he then tried to read and understand.

"This code randomly changes the turn speed of those motors." Saber raised his gauntleted hand at the corner joints of the iron frame after mulling over the on-screen symbols. Seeing how his master remained just as puzzled as before, the knight tried to explain again in simpler language. "Basically, when you switch the machine on, the tennis-ball container would dangle like a pendulum. But that computer will keep changing how fast it dangles, completely at random."

"Then I know what this does." Brigit declared quietly. Saber himself still didn't grasp the whole picture yet, so he scooted over to his master for his own turn to listen and learn.

"This must be a ritual that tests a mage's ability to control the future." She dumped the tennis balls out onto the floor, and loaded them into the base of the pump. "The intent of the ritual is to make all the marbles fall into the cup, like this." She turned the crank on the simple mechanical pump continuously, and one by one the balls fell out of the top of the pump and down into the plastic can. She then pointed to the computer as she went on. "But if that contraption disrupts the rite and moves the cup at random, the balls will not fall in, unless the mage has clairvoyance over just when the cup comes under the pump."

"Master..." Saber frowned slightly. "I don't mean to be a downer, but this toy could have been built by Elise simply to screw with our minds-" His voice was cut short by a curt silencing finger on his lips. "It's not a toy!" Brigit hissed indignantly. "This is serious magecraft! Look at the sigils carved into the floor." She lighted a small fire in her palm to illuminate the dark room, and pointed her servant's gaze to the cemented ground. A large circle of etched runes surrounded the machine, and a smaller circle of runes boxed the ground where Brigit sat on.

"I can read some of these." Saber pointed to a handful of symbols here and there. "They're just for general meditation, nothing too convincing." The servant became slightly exasperated as he continued to speak. "Master, we're wasting time. We haven't even looked upstairs. My plan was to draw them back home by tripping their alarm, but set up an ambush for them before they get here. I think we're getting behind schedule..."

Brigit silently put up with the grumbling boy as she searched around the basement, flipping through cluttered desks and dusty shelves. Saber was such a hard person to know, even for his own master who can glean his memories through the dream cycle. Unlike her previous servant, Saber's memories were impossibly confusing to piece together, and not at all informative. Maybe his weak hold on his own sanity was the one thing that he had in common with her, and perhaps the only link that raised their mutual affinity. He seemed loyal deep down; perhaps even caring; she wished the best for him, but could not guess what it was that he really needed...

She focused herself. It was clear now that Saber's original suggestion to search the house for clues was indeed correct, although she also saw that contrary to what he believed now, there was no need to search for anything upstairs. They've already discovered the mage's concealed study room, and every clue they might possibly find had to be right here.

Saber has meanwhile resigned himself to limiting the detective work to this basement, and began sifting through the shelves on the far side of the room. Books on magecraft lined those shelves; some were hardcover, others soft, and there were even occasional hand-written notebooks filled from cover to cover. He took out a flashlight from his archaic armour and tried to read their titles, but it was an awful chore in the dim room. But then, he found something that seemed out of place.

"Master." He called out to Brigit. "Come have a look." He looked uncomfortably at the embers in her palm; wondering how hard it was for her to keep herself from setting the shelves on fire. "There must be a light switch in this room." He thought out loud as he scanned the walls with his flashlight. Seeing no switches anywhere, he guessed that it must be hidden in some remote corner just to make life difficult for trespassers. Oh well, if that was the case, he wasn't going to bother.

The object of attention was one particular notebook on the shelf that seemed especially old. The frayed bindings were very poorly done, and it looked so frail that it might collapse upon touch. With her soft fingers, Brigit gently took the manuscript off the shelf, and held it gently as she examined the cover. Even with no fire in her hand, she could still see in the dark better than her servant.

"Why, this is the Les Prophecies!" Brigit whispered in excitement over finding such a relic. "Suits her rather well, I suppose..."

"What's that?" Saber had no clue about the rarity of the find. His own lives and times were just too far removed.

"The author of this manuscript lived in France, six centuries before this time. He was an apothecary who was reputed to have the ability to see into the future. He compiled some of his cryptic visions in this very work, and many people believe this book to have successfully predicted many disasters in the centuries after his life."

"Such as?"

"Many believe that this book foresaw the great war that happened a just few decades before this time."

"Poor bastard. I could see why he has a cult following." Saber was about to make some more irreverent remarks when something else dawned on him. "Wait, wait, wait." He tapped rapidly on the wooden shelf for extra emphasis as he pointed his other gauntleted hand at the manuscripts. "That old man; her servant; Caster...! Clairvoyance, right?"

"Right... so HE's the current Caster." Brigit mumbled a foreign name as she reverently gave the old book a slight wave.

"And this thing was her reagent." As Saber recovered coherent speech, Brigit noticed his excitement fading as fast as it came. "Let's grab the book and head out. We'll have to face them outside." Saber asked grimly, his voice sounding far away. Without waiting for his master's nod, he made his way up the two flights of stairs with Brigit closely behind, who was concerned for her own servant more than anything else.

"What an effort." She heard him mumble to himself under his breath.

***Scene Break***

They laid low under a child's slide in the park close to the estate, waiting for Caster to reveal his presence. But as the clock ticked past three in the morning, there was still no sign.

"What if they're not coming back?" Brigit asked her servant. "Like you said before, we don't have time to wait here forever. We need to get back to Ervin and Archer."

Saber was toying with nightmare as he stared blankly at the dimmed purple runes in his obsidian blade. "Wait a bit more. They'll come." He sounded more than a little agitated. "I don't think they have a say in that."

"You're not feeling well." Brigit put a hand on her servant's hunching shoulder. "Will you be okay?"

"I'm not used to the air in this time and place. It feels like travel sickness." The knight shook his head and managed a difficult grin. He in fact wasn't lying; he wasn't used to the air, and he did feel nauseated. Turning around to his master, he asked the same question in return.

"Will you be okay?"

Silence built up for several long moments before she gave her meek-voiced reply. "I've seen so much, I just don't know." Then perhaps seeing the implications of her own answer, she fell silent. The servant only nodded, meaning several things at once but without knowing which of them went through to her. Once more the only sound that hung in air was the occasional clanking of plate armour and the shuffling of wooden chips beneath bladed greaves. At least until the nearest chapel rang her doleful bells. Half past three.

"You told me that Elise's armoury hinted at a knight who played with the enemy's mind." Brigit broke the silence as a suffocating sense of unease continued to build in the air. "Then what if her plan all along was to waste our time here, while she went about in her night patrols without any fear of running into us?"

"Wait her out." Saber stretched his arms, and tried his best to straighten his voice as he did so. "She'll come."

"Saber." Brigit knelt in front of the fidgeting boy, her quivering voice a painful alloy of sincerity and agitation. "I know I'm a bad master with no ideas of my own, and you've been strained from the start to think on my behalf, and shoulder my disgusting problems. I can feel we're both frail spirits, and I can feel that you're about to crack, just like the way I did before. Now I must perform my duties as a master and do the thinking myself, just so you could rest your mind. Please obey me, so my petty conscience can be at ease." Her warm black eyes rested on Saber's face, and waited for him to lift his ghoulish yellow pupils to meet her gaze. At length he nodded, propping himself up with his sword, and solemnly donned his helmet again.

"Your orders then, master?" His distorted voice has always sounded haunting, but this time perhaps even more so.

"Let's get back to Ervin, okay?"

The knight bowed his head, perhaps trying to convince himself above all that his formal duties came first.

"Yes, my lord."

***Scene Break***

The air was tense in the still-dark early morning; but the angst and dread that clung to Brigit and Saber did little to raise their awareness as they began to move back east through the streets. As Caster's presence still could not be felt nearby, they had no inclination to remain vigilant and spread their minds even thinner. The night has been taxing, and they've fallen behind on their plans to take out a servant before dawn. They were despondent, and as such were caught unprepared.

From behind them, Elise emerged from her concealed stalking and broke into a viciously fast run. Brigit was the first to sense the impending attack, and she whirled around to ignite a narrow cone of blasting flame towards the assailant. But impossibly, Elise barrelled past the origin of the cone even as it was cast, and the destructive spell exploded harmlessly behind her back. The assailant's charge seemed to bear down on Saber, who struggled to react quickly. All eight different-coloured gems on his heavy girdle glowed hotly as he tried to decide which of his eight weapons to call fourth, for he was briefly at a loss on how to shield himself and protect his master at the same time. The weapons began to materialize in hands, but his focus wasn't total when Elise suddenly changed course, kicked him in the stomach, and propelled herself towards Brigit. Saber, who botched the usually-instant weapon summoning, tried to call out his weapons again; but the gems that held them disliked being interrupted during activation, momentarily becoming stuck and were slow to deliver.

Brigit was left on her own. Had she retained her full-blown servant existence, she would have been more than a match for a human mage. But as she was, thought she retained much of her raw power, her mental agility was no longer up to par. Without the effect of her cursed craze, her advantage might have been tenuous even if she was fully prepared. Now, she didn't even have that to fall back on. Reacting as quickly as she could, she hastily traced a trail of flame and forged it into a lance. She stabbed it towards Elise, using the charging figure's own momentum against her. When Elise came to an unnatural stop instantly without lurching forward into the impaling, Brigit continued to swing the lance in an arc, melting it and reforming it in the air so that its sharp heavy tip was on the other end. She then jabbed again on the backhand, and when Elise dodged out of the way she reformed her lance again for another forehand attack. Thus she retained the superior momentum of a one-sided spear, but still attacking nearly twice as fast as it would normally allow. Direct fire magic was unwieldy in close quarters, but for a moment it seemed that Brigit was doing fine without it. Elise did not stay under the flurry, choosing instead to leap backwards and disengage to deflate Brigit's momentum. Brigit seized the opening, and began casting a fire spell at range now that there was some distance between them, but then at an impossibly fast speed, Elise charged back and barged into Brigit, backhanding the lancer's face with a gauntleted fist. In a follow-up motion that wasn't as smooth but no less vicious, Elise made a stabbing motion, seemingly wielding nothing but air, yet left Brigit down on the ground in a disembowelled heap, regenerating in coma and clinging to life.

Elise then found herself caught in a forceful bear hug from behind. She twisted her armoured legs in a wrestling motion, tripping Saber off his feet, and violently bent her waist forward to try and throw Saber over her head. But the knight clutched onto her, and pressed down on her back while swept off in an attempt to break her spine. Forced to protect her own bones, Elise let herself fall over, protecting her fair face from the fall with her fully armoured arms. Between Saber and Elise, it should have been the latter that got up first, being the one who did not fall on his back. But Saber, in his frenzy, saw to it that it would not be so. As Elise lifted herself Saber was already up, barging back into her with tooth and claw to suppress her of any tactics. But he made the mistake of leaving Elise's arms free, and she promptly struck at his helmeted face as she went down. As the hardy woman suffered scrapes and bruises on the side of her face, she saw a single human teeth fall out from Saber's winged helm. The battle descended into a deadly brawl as she has made repeated attempts to attack his groin, and he has tried more than once to seize her by her hair. They became devoid of all but the basest of techniques as they rolled on the pavement, their heavy armours scraping against everything with grinding screech and flying sparks.

Elise's weapon, now left unattended beside Brigit, flashed into existence as its owner's focus briefly relaxed. Saber did not get a clear glimpse of the weapon due to the angle and brevity of the lapse, but he saw a gambit to break the vicious deadlock. He could not hope to precisely hold the invisible weapon, for it was clear that Elise had manual control over her weapon's concealment, and might deceive him into holding it the wrong way. But what he could do was to kick the weapon wholesomely away, forcing Elise to choose between Brigit and her own weapon. As he feigned a strike and leapt towards Brigit where he saw the apparition, Elise grabbed him by the legs, tried to trip him, and beat him to the weapon. Saber was tempted to try summoning his own weapons again, but he couldn't risk Elise jamming his belt again at such proximity. So he simply returned the favour and tripped her back. Deciding on a spur to alter his plan, Saber opted to move Brigit away from the weapon instead of vice versa. While Elise focused on her weapon, grabbing it and consolidating the magic veil that hid it from view, Saber dragged Brigit on the pavement and bolted several paces away. His master would suffer more burns and scrapes, but as she could regenerate from it, it mattered not.

Bruised and aching, Saber sized up his opponent, who no doubt suffered likewise, from a dozen paces out. Even beaten and bruised, Elise was a poster girl for any combat mage. Her blonde hair flowed naturally down her fair face and pauldron-bearing shoulders, and there was a sharp glint in her green eyes that ever so faintly glowed in the dark streets. Her graceful pose despite her crimson heavy armour spoke of impressive stamina, and on her faint frowns rested cunning as intelligent as her sinews were tough. For a moment Saber regretted setting her loose, for now it would be a match of swordsmanship, magecraft, and deadly wits. Nevertheless, Brigit's safety came first.

Or perhaps he didn't want to kill Elise with his bare hands; whatever the reason, the die was cast.

"Had fun in my house, didn't you?" Elise remarked coldly. "Did you find it?"

"No." Saber replied, after frown and pause.

Elise gripped her weapon and entered stance, having confirmed for herself that the battle would be partially fought with their minds. Her question was meant to fish Saber into revealing his character, whether he was straightforward or underhanded. Had he asked for clarification upon what it was she meant for him to find, then he would have proved to be a simple man. Answering yes meant he was either simple-minded or bluffing, which might indicate a suppressive and offensive personality. Answering no so simply could only mean that he either meant to disguise his advantage, or supply an ambiguous question with an equally ambiguous answer. Since no was his answer, Elise guessed that she was facing an underhanded opponent, who preferred to hide tricks up his sleeves. If so, then she needed only to carry out a balanced and cautious attack, depriving him of initiative and the room to use strategy.

She charged him and brought her weapon down, but Saber parried it aside with a greatsword covered in glowing purple runes. She has anticipated Saber to deflect her attacks with greater force than he did, so she leapt back and charged him again to test him. After several repeated moved like this, she guessed to her dismay that Saber has already grasped the nature of her blitz attacks.

"Thus is the nature of your magic." Saber taunted her beneath his helm, his words only confirming her concerns. "You will fate itself to move you fourth, preordaining your feet to set upon where you desire, and reality but obeys and catches up. Yet..."

Elise gritted her teeth and attacked him again, not out of spite, but to take advantage of possible lapses in his readiness while he was busy talking. Again Saber opted to parry instead of dodge, and batted the attack aside. Determined to demoralize Elise to gain an edge, he kept talking.

"Yet your power does not go beyond moving you where you wish, and at that, your unnatural speed doth not compound upon momentum. Quick are your movements, but weak are your attacks."

Elise spat on the ground, her crass gesture filled with fresh blood from her punctured lips. She barrelled towards Saber again, stopping a good several paces away from him, off to his side. As her foe turned to face her, she closed the gap with heavy steps. Saber met her with his most stubborn stance, judging she was going to forgo her speed for full power. But Elise made a stabbing motion at Saber's glowing runic blade, who found his weapon suddenly forced sideways somehow as the sorceress wrestled his arm down to the side. Saber was baffled and rightly so, for how could one sword physically deflect another with a THRUST?

During his blank-out as he was forced to the right from the waist up, Elise slammed his stomach with her left knee. Saber managed to muster himself there and then, and counterattacked with a flicking of his head, seemingly intent on decapitating Elise with his helmet's winged blades. It was poorly aimed and appeared almost hesitant, but Elise took no chances, and stepped far back. Being tied down to Brigit's comatose form, Saber did not stray away to press Elise further, inadvertently handing the initiative back to her.

As she charged again, this time ponderously and picking up momentum, Elise made a tossing motion with her weapon, and caught it with a weaving motion that was hard to follow. Saber then saw that she now appeared to be holding a sword in each hand. Of course, everything being invisible, it could all be a trick; but he had to choose his move carefully in light of the contingencies. Two gemstones flickered and Nightmare disappeared from his hands, replaced by a light pavise and his sword-shaped magnetic baton. Even as its inductors hummed to life, giving the weapon a light-blue sheen, he threw it at her left flank with a sideways toss. Elise bent her right arm over to deflect the projectile, which then became stuck to her weapon as it sent a stunning jolt down her arms. As she stopped in her tracks, Saber took note of the visible electric streak of his sword's discharge, which presumably ran down along the metallic body of Elise's weapon. Whatever contraption she held in her hand, it was very long, extending about a metre and a half in front of her hand, and another metre's length behind. Gritting her teeth and forcing her muscles, she gripped her weapon again with both hands, swung it in a jerking flick, and sent the projectile back at Saber. Far from expecting Saber to be jolted by his own petard, Elise simply hoped to lure Saber into awkwardly retrieving his own weapon and presenting himself in a poor stance. Ignoring the sight of Saber effortlessly tapping his girdle twice to recall the weapon instantly to his hand, she swung her blade at Saber's unshielded flank. The knight turned in time to block the attack, and metal clashed loudly upon metal. Saber reeled for a few steps before regaining his balance, proving that Elise's attacks could easily be forceful if she so wanted.

Elise's weapon continued to echo in a pure tone, as if singing or wailing, until Elise gently brought it against her cheeks. The metallic beast damped, and came to a hush.

"It's elegant craft." Saber called out to Elise as he switched his own weapons back to the two-handed Nightmare. "A twin-bladed greatsword held upon a shaft, at once a deadly blade and a beauteous tuning fork. Will you be so miserly as to keep it concealed?"

Elise grudgingly let out a faint, crooked grin. As if unsheathing from under an igniting envelope, the shroud around her titanic sword began to burn itself away from the blade's twin tips. The body of the blade was split laterally into two symmetric halves, leaving a strip of gap in between. Beneath the twin blades of polished silver lay a crossguard of crimson raven wings, fading at its ends to reveal burnished gold. The shaft shone with the bony, whitened gleam of enchanted steel, but gradually fading to grey and chaos black towards the rear tip. In the nightly streets it seemed as though the pole continued forever, stretching invisibly into the concealing darkness.

She could not help but feel both touched and uneasy. Here was a stranger who understood her designs and spoke on her wavelength, even more so than Ervin did. But she kept herself in check, for the pup was in her way. Be he a servant, magus, or lunatic, he had to be cut down - for the sake of her research, and ultimately her little brother.

They clashed again, no longer disengaging at the first sign of uncertainty. As Elise freed herself of the prana needed to upkeep the sheath on her sword, Saber too has committed to a more direct set of techniques. Sword met sword, pitting strength for strength, skill for skill.

Confident of a servant's natural advantage over a mortal in terms of brute strength, Saber feigned a glaring slip and allowed Elise to fork Nightmare between her weapon's twin blades. He had been certain that he could easily negate Elise's attempt to disarm him like before so long as he saw the move coming, but as he struggled at the predicted exchange he realized his miscalculation. Elise's sword had a polearm's shaft; by shifting one hand back down to the weapon's rear end, she had a long-armed lever that allowed her to apply her force very far away from the pivot. Saber had hoped to counter-wrestle Elise and turn the disarming back against her, but he recognized now that the physics of this exchange simply wasn't on his side. Still, even with a lever, she had to be powerful far beyond mortal standards to make good on it, and Saber could only wonder how Elise can become this strong.

In the urgency of combat he had to put his question on hold. If she couldn't be brute-forced, then he had to adjust tactics. As Elise orbited him for several steps in an attempt to bend him out of shape, Saber held his weapon with a single hand and rotated in step with Elise to deflate the strength of her twisting pressure. Then, focusing his mind on his gemstones to make sure his weapon switch was instant, he let Nightmare dissipate from his right hand, and conjured a different longsword in his left. As Elise suddenly lost the opposing weapon to wrestle against, she was thrown off balance; Saber took advantage of this and cleaved at her with his new sword held in the left. She twisted her body awkwardly in an attempt to dodge, and the attack grazed her arms, cutting through her arm-plates and drawing gouts of blood. She fell to the ground and quickly rolled away, before standing up again and regaining her posture.

"Why do you persist?" There was a clearly sarcastic and inciting tone in Saber's taunting, loaded with the intention of demoralizing Elise while she was no doubt trying to regain her composure. "Your brother already made his choice. He isn't yours anymore..."

"SHUT UP!" Elise cut him off with a shrill scream. For better or worse, Saber has managed to place down the last straw to drive the once-cool Elise over the edge. Elise's enraged gaze now drilled through the air, locking directly onto the helmeted face of the servant of her most hated master. "I WAS going to hold back for the fights ahead." She shouted, her voice boiling with venomous resentment. "But your death... KEEPS DEMANDING MY UNDIVIDED ATTENTION!"

She vaulted up into the air with her magic, and then allowed physics to take its course on her way down. She brought the weight of armour, steel, and muscle down towards Saber in a massive cleave, who did not risk meeting it head on. As the servant moved out of the way, the sorceress's sword crunched into the pavement as if it was biscuit. She wasn't done though, and used the dug-in pole to propel herself back up in a flying kick, denting painful boot-prints into Saber's plated chestpiece. Then, before she could fall back down she used Saber's body as a tiny foothold and threw herself back up a third time. Expecting a chain of fast and brutal physical attacks, Saber withdrew several steps back - enough to give the space needed to bleed out her momentum, and at the same time luring her away from Brigit's direction. He felt almost smug then; enemies who have lost their cool are open enemies, and their attacks are no better than mere death throes. He readied his shield of lifeblood in his hands now, expecting to take a few hits before she burns herself out. So long as he heals through the damage, the fight would be his.

But this time Elise did not give chase as she fell back down. Ignited prana surged through her weapon, and an angry, incandescent glow burned between its twin blades, starting at the crossguard and quickly gauging up to the tip.

"Victory-rush-" She began her incantation. As she dug her heels deep into the ground, with one leg slightly forward poised in a position to absorb massive recoil, she swung her weapon in a downward cleave.

"Strike-of-fate!"

Even as her incantation finished, a wave of bright raw energy burst out in a cone, its wavefront as sharp as any blade. The knight servant was caught directly in its blast, with no possibility of moving out to either side. The world around him exploded in a blinding, agonizing flare, before dying back down into the blackness of early morning.

His helmet was blown away, with a broken piece lodged in his skull. Blood streamed down his forehead, adding to a mess of cuts and bruises. His right side was a charred crater at the waist, emanating the sickening smell of roasted flesh even as he struggled to lean against his sword to halt his staggering fall. Too overwhelmed to muster enough prana to heal himself in the right places, he only mended his face wounds, so that he could re-open his sickly eyes. Elise locked gazes with him from a distance; his face seemed to carry words, but there was no way to decipher what they were.

"Still a beginner... at tricks and traps." Elise wheezed between heaves and pants, with lactic acid biting at every strand of her muscle after her all-out exertion. "Did you really think I would… lose my head?"

"_..."

Saber couldn't even respond. His answer came in a hoarse, indistinct gurgle. But his mind felt sharper than ever, if only to fully meditate on the irony. With so much of his bloodstream and innards exposed to the airborne mana, the conditions were finally ripe for him to fight at full power, like he did in his own timeline. But he was too injured now to make good on it. He only wanted to have a word with her now, but it seemed as though he wouldn't be able to do even that.

"SABER!"

Brigit, having recovered while Elise was kept occupied, now flew to her servant's side. Even as Saber collapsed and clung to life by a thread, his body slowly mended. Not quite in the abominable, gushing fashion brought about by his lifeblood shield, but a process more smooth and natural, albeit more slow. As he lay quietly on the ground, Brigit confronted Elise once more.

"How much of that apothecary's potion did you expend just now?" The healing goddess was in her usual meek voice, but with a slightly vindictive certainty that was not too subtle for the opposing woman to miss. "Or is your natural strength really this high?"

"You're the real cheater here." Elise spat even as she kept struggling to catch her breath. "A healing goddess with a defensive servant, you have to be pretty stupid to stumble as much as you did."

"No need to be bitter about your brother." The same remark, spoken so softly from one girl to another, sounded more poisonous and hurtful than Saber could ever manage by virtue of its tone.

"And why shouldn't I be?" Elise wasn't the kind to really throw a fit, but in her subdued seething she was genuinely hateful. "Your kind decides destinies for entire bloodlines at whim, and watch in stoic amusement as we squirm under your designs. As if that wasn't enough, you interject yourselves into our lives for fun, to disrupt our efforts to repair what you've dealt. Have you no shame?"

"You're talking to the wrong soul." Brigit's voice remained placid. "The prime cause of things lies in the Root, not with any deity. And even if you win the chance to commune with It, believe me, It might not even begin to understand your words. Furthermore fate, like all supernatural phenomena, is often self-fulfilled. Much like how my existence in this form is a product of human belief, your fate's existence is also a product of your belief..."

Elise remained bitterly defiant. "I don't expect the Root, or any of you spirits and gods, to neither see the gravity of, nor answer for, your own whims. If you lecture me on belief, then I don't believe in free wishes. But so long as I win, I can conduct my research with unlimited funds, and find the real answer on my own. So long as I win... and believe me, I STILL CAN!" Before anyone could react, she undid a small metal flask hanging beneath her belt, and drank its contents. Her jaws and hands quivered, and she shook briefly before steadying again, her posture once more solid like stone. She prepared to face off with her opponent, but another voice from behind stopped her short.

"Elise, stand down."

"Sir?" Elise spun around at the new arrival. The man was tall and thin to the bone, clad in a lean frock coat and dressed black from collars to boots. His magical presence could be clearly felt, which made Brigit wonder why she never sensed his approach. Saber too now, eyed the stranger uneasily as he rose to his master's side, undecided of what to make of him.

"You've done well, Elise. Your mission is complete. Others will take it from here."

"Sir?" Elise addressed the man who appeared to be a superior of hers with more than a little doubt. "But there are still servants at large. The Grail-"

The man held up his hand. "Believe me, you're already been instrumental in securing the Grail for the Association. These enhancement potions are killing you, and you're no good to us dead. As promised, you'll now be taken into custody, where you'll continue your research under our watch. Your role as a master is over."

"But I AM the master of Caster. What is the meaning of this?"

As Elise questioned her apparent paymaster, Brigit and Saber eyed one another, each looking to the other for a cue on how to react. Brigit for one was cautiously glad that Elise got what she wanted without having to fight Ervin again, so she decided to give a discouraging shake of her head when Saber anxiously tried to step forward and cut in. The servant grunted uneasily, and observed the opposing mages with strained ears and weary eyes.

"...of course, to each his own." The bony magus continued to speak in a voice that, despite the formal words it carried, sounded mellow and down-to-earth. "But you're the type who cares more for the ends, so it's more true to your nature to not focus on your servant, but rather the goal that you used him towards. It's harshly put, but you know better than myself what is it that you truly care for."

"Of course, I understand." Elise lowered her head and gestured towards Brigit and Saber, which made the pair all the more uneasy. "I want a word with them."

"Sure." In a move that was almost humorous, the mystery man turned himself away and covered his ears. Elise strode towards Brigit, boldly stopping just a few paces short.

"You'll take good care of him." She wasn't asking a question or making a request. She was giving an order that only allowed yes for an answer.

"Yes." Brigit's affirmation was a bit more puffed than her usual meek speak, and she held her hand up solemnly, in a gesture often used by mortals to make oaths. "You have my word."

Elise made an about-face and stepped away, her boots clanking wearily on the ruined pavement as she no longer bothered to move with any grace. As she drew near her superior, the man effortlessly opened a small portal right in front of their eyes. Out from the foreboding black-blotted purple swirl came a pair of tendril-like chains that bound Elise's hands in front of her, tying them at the wrists. Stoically, she began to walk through.

"STOP! DO NOT GO THROUGH!"

It was the first time Elise heard Saber's voice clearly without his muffling helmet. Despite striking a chord somehow, its ring was so off that she was barely able to tell which of the figures has just spoken. For a brief, frozen second, she turned towards the helmless youth, her wide eyes and open mouth unsure of whether to shape themselves into an expression of surprise or confusion. And then she was gone, swallowed into the empyrean.

****************************************************************************Chapter End**************************************

********************************************************************Servant Stat Unlocked: Caster********************************

Class: Caster

Master: Elise Cambrian

True Name: Michel de Nostredame

Sex: Male

Height/Weight: 165cm, 50kg

Alignment: Neutral

***Parameters:***

Strength: E

Magical Energy: A

Endurance: E

Luck: B

Agility: C

Noble Phantasm: C

***Class Abilities:***

Territory Creation: B+: creates a magical zone that undermines enemy effectiveness. While inside his own territory, the servant receives a bonus to all his skills, as the zone is considered his workshop.

Item Construction: A: capable of making very, very powerful potions.

***Skills:***

Apothecary: B: enhances the versatility of Item Construction; which may now be used to strengthen or poison various imbibers. A skill of rank B allows the servant to mix magical serums that will last in the human body for up to a day.

Clairvoyance: A: allows the servant to sense approaching danger, across both distance and time. A skill of rank A allows the servant to not only predict outcomes of events, but actively manipulate them by magic.

***Noble Phantasms:***

Les Prophecies: originally written during Caster's mortal life, this book is often thought of as a collection of his greatest historical prophecies. As a noble phantasm, it contains an inexhaustible supply of blank pages at the end, so that Caster may continue to manipulate and predict the future. At any time while away from the distractions of combat, he may choose to predict the outcome of a specific future event, or attempt to actively influence it at a much greater energy cost. However, Caster has a drastically decreased chance of success at controlling events that have already been decided by greater forces, and he cannot know ahead of time what those events are. Furthermore, target-specific prophecies are subject to the influence of that person's luck.

Rank: B

Type: Varies

Range: Varies

Target: Varies


	15. Fate: The False Prophet

"What have you done?"

Saber bulled his way to the stranger, his sword poised to slice his neck. But the lanky figure did not so much as to attempt to react. The servant knight stopped his sword a hair's breadth away from the mage's jugular; he drilled him with the gaze of his eyes, their feral pupils now more ghastly than ever.

"I sense a soul in search of answers." The threatened figure seemed perfectly at ease. "You are welcome to ask."

"Tell me, priest, where did you get those chains?"

"They belong to the steward of the Grail that summoned you."

"You are the steward for this War?" Saber did not lower his weapon, and his gaze glinted with a hunger for answers.

"You recognize those chains, Saber?"

Unable to push his sword further without killing the bony figure, Saber could only switch his sword's position to indicate his loss patience. "Does a Priest of the Chained Beast not abide by his own teachings? Let your yes be yes and no be no, for all else beside these are detestable."

The bony figure's eyes brightened, and then narrowed. But his voice remained steady and assured. "No, the steward is not I, but his icons need not be outside my reach."

"Who are you?"

"I am Andrew Fortwright, sanctioned magus of the Association."

"Tell me about this steward, Reverend Fortwright."

"No need to call me by such a title, Saber. But if such formality makes you comfortable, I will oblige."

Listening on the side but somewhat lost, Brigit prodded her servant from behind. "Is something the matter, Saber? Do you know him?"

"I do not." Saber momentarily turned away from Fortwright to answer his own master. "But though I don't know the lion, I've known the claws."

"Harshly put." Fortwright cut in plainly. "Are you a Knight? Which sect do you hail from?"

"I was with the Sect of the Lost City, but no longer." Saber continued his dialogue with Fortwright, with terms that left Brigit feeling lost.

"Pardon us, goddess." The bony magus turned to Brigit with a hint of courteous reverence, but light enough to seem but a gesture of nothing more than formality. "It seems that your servant has once belonged to an ageless order that I am a part of. You can see that we both have much to catch up on, but for better or worse I must take my leave now to attend to other things." He turned briefly to Saber and nodded lightly, hinting that he was addressing not only the master but the servant as well. "With your permission, Brigit, Saber can come speak to me in the Old Westminster Abbey later today. He seems to have many interesting questions, and it may yet please him to stumble upon an answer."

"But for now, I must take my leave." The skinny magus walked away, in a hurried pace that seemed neither calculated nor deliberate, only slightly awkward.

"Saber." Brigit turned to her servant again, now that they were left on their own once more. "Who was he? Is everything okay?"

"Master." Saber clutched the side of his head, yawning unexpectedly. His hand briefly groped his belt for the winged helm, before remembering that it was destroyed. "Sorry, I, uh... that man is a priest for the order I once belonged to during my lifetime. I have to grill him for the history of my order. It is really important that I speak to him, for a number of reasons... so..." He looked imploringly at Brigit, letting his eyes carry the implied request before putting it into words. "Please, let me go see him. It's a chance that I may never ever get again."

"He looks tricky." Brigit remarked meekly. "If you are going to him, I'm coming along."

"Thanks, Brigit." Saber gave a smile as his voice quivered. "It means a lot to me."

***Scene Break***

The ancient church stood like a battered behemoth, with much of its outside masonry coated in the greasy grey of industrial dust. Its towers, like weary limbs, reached feebly upward towards the backdrop of a pallid, monochrome sky. Eerie scratch marks marred the asphalt surrounding the sanctum, but neither servant nor master took note of them as they walked tensely ahead.

On his way to the iron-trimmed oaken doors, Saber stopped short beneath the stone steps. Brigit stood quietly behind him, supporting him with her soft gaze without saying a word to either urge him onwards or back. They stood there for a moment, facing each other but avoiding each other's eyes, as though speaking in a silent language that needed no words. But soon, Saber broke the silence.

"How much of me have you seen, Brigit?"

"I see fragments in dreams - small pieces at that, and impossible to piece together. In some visions I see you living in a land that is lush and bountiful, but in others you're in a post-war wasteland not unlike the here and now. You were surrounded by the same friends in both kinds of visions, but I can't put the events in order, nor can I make sense of the sound..."

"Tehehehehaha..." Saber let out a sharp, bitter laugh before composing himself. "You were seeing different lives, repeating the same results again and again."

Brigit said nothing, and only laid her small hand on Saber's shoulder. She has been both a servant and an immortal, so she might have had some idea of what it was like to live repeated lives, but who was she to say?

"But with luck, it'll all end here." Saber turned towards the abbey steps and steeled himself onwards. "Given time, this order will destroy everything. If I can understand the order's origins, then perhaps I can find a way out." He made his way to the door but paused again. "Brigit, do not, under any circumstance, follow me inside."

"Saber! But you promised me to let me come along!"

"It was just so that I could come faster to your aid should anything happen. But please. do not interfere with us."

"Unacceptable!" Brigit stood up right against the door, and eyed her servant as she were an angry parent. "I'm going with you whether you like it or not. That's an order."

"Brigit, listen. Fortwright is from the sect within my order that deals with fighting magical beings. A deity like you will be slaughtered instantly if you confront him in his own sanctum."

"But you're a heroic spirit as well..."

"No divinity though."

"Don't you want to be diplomatic first, so he can answer your questions?" Brigit felt determined to prolong the argument. "If you leave me outside, he'll know your intentions right away."

"Don't you understand?" Saber was exasperated now. "If we fight together, you'll slow me down! Just stay here-"

The door swung open.

"Come in, Knight of the Lost City." Andrew Fortwright appeared in doorway and invited Saber inside. Brigit and Saber exchanged glances, and Saber did his best to quell his master's doubts by giving her a firm nod for staying put. Following the magus inside the church, Saber proceeded to begin his questions.

"Tell me, Reverend; was it true from the onset that the Order intended to destroy the world?"

Fortwright's expression became intense and serious as he turned back around in the middle of the benches. "Would you define our intentions so quickly? If we re-order the world from the brink of extinction so that it prospers for eons before the inevitable catastrophe, are we saving the world, or destroying it?"

"Who's idea was this? Yours? Your contemporaries? Or someone who came before you?"

"Even counting from the here and now, our Order has existed for six thousand years, under different names. The concept of the cycle of Life and Death has always existed; it is merely my idea to bring it about in the purest form."

"Well framed, Reverend, but tell that to those who receive the 'death' part of your cycle. Can you not see where your wish leads?"

"Precisely because I have seen it, I must also see it through."

"And you would hijack the Grail to do so?" Saber drew Nightmare from the purple gem in his belt. "This, I cannot allow."

"Then you know the future already. Are you so sure that you can create the paradox that you wish to see?" Fortwright made no effort to conceal the fact that he has dropped into casting stance as his voice became frank and doubly serious. "Our order has existed since the beginning of civilization, and I will not let our plans come under threat from any agency. As a knight coming from our created future, you should understand that one must be dead to have truly lived..."

"ENOUGH!" Saber swung Nightmare just as a swirling purple-black portal emerged before him, spewing out a pair of arresting chains. The iron tendrils snapped in two, but another portal began to form beside him.

"...and soon, the fickle Root shall have itself a perpetual, human Proxy!" Fortwright chanted prophetically as he cast one chaining portal after another, "And all that's left for His ascension is a fitting sacrifice!"

"You are condemning whole timelines to repeated oblivion, consigning millions to wither and burn!" Saber cut a relentless path towards the magus through the sudden barricade of chains, which bled out from small sinister portals that dotted reality like pustules. "If what I have seen will be your doing, then I know what I must do."

"You fail to understand the elegance of our design." Fortwright has now retreated to an upper floor and talked down to Saber from his vantage point. "The world will come to be lush, serene, prosperous, and when it is too old, our Proxy will usher it into natural death, so that it may reincarnate in a different timeline. Our human Proxy will oversee it all, eternally!"

"And your proxy will be smugly exempt from death as he condemns millions to it, again and again!" Saber was infuriated, but his accusations only fuelled Fortwright further.

"And through recreating those lives," the magus replied, "our human Proxy will replace the Root as the Prima Causa of things. The destiny of Man will finally be held in the hands of one of his own. To betray this cause is to turn your back on mankind itself. You would be a traitor in a way larger than you can conceive!"

"No." Saber shook his head. His attacks have stopped, and the debate distracted him as he looked up to the magus on the platform above him. "From one person to the next, what gives one the right to decide the creation and destruction of the next at whim?"

"Saber." The magus proclaimed solemnly. "Since the beginning of civilization, our king has been on his epic quest to obtain that right. And now, present day, present time, that quest ends."

Without warning, a portal appeared beside Brigit. "Master, watch out!" Saber screamed as he rushed to her side, ploughing through a few unfortunate hardwood benches that got into his way. Brigit was already busy dodging the groping chains with all the agility that she could muster from her former lancer class, but the chains kept materializing in angles that forced her deeper inside the church.

"Retreat outside, and stay far from the building. Priests have very long reach with their spells within their own sanctums, but they have trouble extending it outside." Saber cut away another nearby tendril that reached for Brigit as he made his way to her and began disrupting the chains that were going for his master. As they fought their way back out the door, Fortwright came back down from the upper tier and pressed forward towards them. At a wave of his hand, the once-invisible glyphs, etched on the walls and pavement outside the cathedral, shimmered in a subtle purple that only seemed to glow in sections at a few angles. In a lifetime of dealing with priests of the Order, Saber never saw any symbols or wards of the like. He drew his magic resistance shield from his belt and waited to see the effect of Fortwright's gimmick, but beyond glowing, the runes seemed to carry no effect at all that could be felt by the shield. Saber was inclined then to conclude that the runes were 'blank,' their glows being mere visual effects that made them little more than just markers.

That was, until Brigit let out a bestial shriek behind him. Red orbs under her eyelids trained on the priest standing just inside the cathedral door, as liquid flame dripped like blood off her burning lance. As the flowing embers splashed down on the runed asphalt, they burned into it just like magma melting rock. Usually stray by-products of magic would react with any active rune, but the purple markings continued to dimly shimmer, without any sense of disruption, further suggesting that they were actually doing nothing at all.

If so, how come Brigit lost her sanity again precisely now, as if on cue from Fortwright?

"MASTER, NO!" Saber's warning fell on deaf ears as the nimble frame of the insane goddess shot towards Andrew Fortwright. As soon as she entered the cathedral's premise, portals emerged around her with stretching chains arrest her body. Although she manoeuvred herself around each new emerging portal at lightening speed, the sheer number of spawning chains at Fortwright's command were too overwhelming to be overcome. No shackles have touched her deified body just yet, but she was virtually lost under a black cloud of enchanted iron.

Damn, Saber thought to himself. This was the worst time for his master to lose her mind. It was as though the harmless glyphs on the ground made drove her insane on cue; nebulous suspicions sprung in his mind, but first he had to attend to the immediate. Brigit wasn't going to make it. She made an instinctive break out of the swarming multitude of chains, but she inevitably grazed a writhing tendril. Saber, afraid of yet expecting such a predicament, was already on his way to carry out his brutal response. As a pair of chains latched onto one of her arms, other nearby members reached to snare her other limbs. Saber was neither too early nor too late, arriving just in time to sever Brigit's limbs one by one as the accursed appendages claimed them. The frail goddess shrieked like a tortured banshee before falling unconscious on the sanctum floor, each of her limbs nothing more than a gory stump as her body slowly mended itself, cell by sickly cell. Saber did his best to not dwell on how horribly he destroyed his master's body, and tried his best to put a lid on his paralyzing sentiments of guilt. There was no other choice, for someone like Brigit could not possibly be freed from such a weapon should a body arrest take hold. What he needed to do now, was to guard her torso against the assailing iron vipers until she woke up again. He expected the chains to swarm in, but they never came.

A loose tendril wrapped up one of Brigit's lost arms, dragged it back through the empyrean ripples, and re-emerged with the gruesome prize through a new portal near an intently watching Fortwright. As fast as they first appeared, all the chains in the room retreated back through the purple wounds in the fabric of space from whence they came. Standing well clear of Saber's assaulting range, Fortwright raised the severed limb like a staff, its stumpy end still dripping blood and marrow.

"Oh no..." Saber rushed Fortwright, but his spirit was already broken even as he broke into his run. His own oversight has ruined his master for the last time; the command seals were still lingering on the frail appendage, and will remain there until Brigit regenerates her arms. As Andrew Fortwright pointed the same small hand that has patted the knight so many times, Saber's mind swam and swirled, distracting the knight from running full speed. It was almost as though time has stopped. Twenty paces, fifteen, ten. Saber was closing in, and still Fortwright took his time. What was he planning? All the more doubt for Saber now, and it stunted his footwork. Five paces. Perhaps he would make it? He raised his sword-

"Let me glean into your mind, Saber."

Casual but precise, the priest gave the command at point blank. He was no stranger to martial arts, but it was pointless for Saber to realize that now. As the order's compelling will pried his jaws open, bent his tongue so that he would be prepared to speak as told, shadowed thoughts and memories welled up inside him and began to cloud his eyes. It was as though he would drown from the inside from his past alone. Even his control over his muscles began to slip.

But he wasn't finished yet. For a brief window he still had control of his motor functions, and a swimming but useable vision. With a vault he slammed down on the dead, fragile hand with the side of his blade. The seals atomized along with the rest of the hand, showering the floor with a spectacular spray of bone splinters and shredded flesh.

The priest let on no more than an angry hiss at being denied, and the sound fell on the knight's deaf ears. Saber's world grew dark; it was not just a command seal at work here, for the paralysis showed telltale hints of a master hypnotist. As all of his faculties slipped out of his control, the knight's last words were faint to the point that they could only be lip-read.

"Sorry, Brigit."

***Scene Break***

Nozumu watched the scene unfold from under a bench. The view was terrible from where he was; but considering that he used Fortwright's own portals to block himself out of view as he moved from cover to cover, he really couldn't have done much better than he had. While Ba-chan's presence concealment gave her a much easier time moving undetected, this wasn't a target that he could let her go at alone.

By now Saber knelt on the ground like a plant, his broken image frayed in shades of grey, mumbling words that couldn't be made out from this distance. Fortwright stood over the knight in a swirl of black and ember orange, his hypnotic hand hovering just above the subject's head. What Nozumu really did focus on however, was a translucent swirl of bloodied red cloud creeping up behind the corrupt magus. Though he couldn't see Ba-chan physically, her intent was showing in an aura of colours, something his eyes were build to perceive. She was drawing close now; one good stab in the back and it would all be over.

A knot formed in Nozumu's throat as he saw a series of bright red flickers in Fortwright's aura. Trouble. The corrupt magus has somehow perceived Ba-chan's approach. As far as Nozumu could read, Fortwright hasn't seen HIM yet; the best bet now was to directly ambush the magus from the front and catch him in a pincer. Deftly he rolled himself to a row of leg-space between the benches where he could stand, nimbly flipped himself on the seat, propelled himself by foot against the next row's backrests, and shot towards his prey as though some ninjutsu has made his body especially light and fast.

It was a change of tactics on the fly, but the link between master and servant gave the Assassin something akin to an extra sense that allowed her to adjust her moves in tandem with her little gaki. Even before Nozumu leapt from the benches, she broke off her presence concealment and went into a dash, revealing a metre-long katana dragging a hand's breadth from the ground. The wily priest blunted Nozumu with an opening a large, chainless portal directly in front of the boy, and did not even attempt to dodge the katana that was brandished behind him.

As Nozumu stumbled to a halt in order to stop himself from falling through the portal trap Fortwright has opened in his face, he saw more than a dozen shackling tendrils wrapped themselves around Ba-chan's arms and legs. Some of the crueller appendages proceeded to form a choking noose around her neck. Nozumu leapt his feet, unsheathing a gladius in each hand, closed the gap in a handful of moderate but fast strides, and made a series of blitzing back attacks against Fortwright's neck, mid-spine, heart, shoulders, and hips. Nozumu could see his enemy's colours fully trained against him now, sparing no attention to the captured Ba-chan. It was the mystic-eyed mage's second nature to understand people's coloured intentions on the fly, but in a pinch Nozumu couldn't spare any effort into deciding what to make of them now. The only way to break the arrest on Ba-chan was to suppress Fortwright and wait for her to break free on her own, but he wasn't even sure if it would work.

Nozumu could always see where the colour-coded Fortwright intended to place his next portal, but predicting his enemy's moves did not guarantee that he would have answers to them. Fortwright continuously placed new portals directly in front of Nozumu, as close as a human's natural magic resistance would allow. Nozumu was forced to turn at every step, revealing that his turn speed lagged far behind how fast he could attack and run. The boy began to grow desperate; he slowly begin to fear that his guardian angel was going to, Root forbid, bite it here and now. Ba-chan meant everything to him, and he loved her in more ways than he could count. She was his reason to fight in the first place, and he will not, can not, lose her now.

"DIE, BASTARD!" He screamed and lunged at him again. He could see where the portals would come, as well as when. Although totally making good on the deluge of synethetic sensations was near impossible, he pushed himself to his limit. He focused only on Fortwright's aura now, shutting out all other nebulae from his eyes and mind. Charge, break left, break right - he relentlessly tried to close in, to keep the corrupt magus occupied, so Ba-chan can muster enough strength to break loose. He wasn't sure what kind of weapon these chains represented, and he wasn't sure if they'd get out of this one alive. But by the Root, he won't let Ba-chan be the first to go.

His tenacity was showing results. Twice he has managed to close in, and twice he has managed to wound the priest. A lesser mage would have been in a heap by now, a sieve of gouged joints and severed tendons, but Fortwright endured his shoulder and waist injuries stoically, showing the loss of neither speed nor stamina. Nozumu saw no sign of healing magecraft on his foe, attesting that the madman held himself together with will alone.

Fortwright has long caught on that the dish-serving brat was trying to peel him off Assassin, so when he found himself some room to divide his attention he willed the mesh of divine chains to begin constricting their target. Nozumu flipped out completely when he caught sight of the priest's casting hand motions towards his servant, but he was too far at that moment to intervene. He watched in mute horror as Ba-chan seemed to almost liquefy under the squeezing strength of the unnatural shackles, her torso and lower body reduced to nothing but a shapeless flesh-bag of dislocated bones and joints. It shocked Nozumu's eyes that any body could be crushed so utterly, losing all semblance of humanity in its deformation. But it surprised him even more when Ba-chan's twisted heap slipped out of the chains and re-assembled herself joint by joint. The tendrils that have held her imploded upon itself in a mess of knots, and Assassin plainly vanished from view, re-obscuring her position for a deadly ambush.

Nozumu breathed a sigh of relief - he never knew she had such a technique, but good surprises were always welcome.

"Hmm, no divinity?" Fortwright mused at Assassin's escape, mildly surprised. "Well, no matter."

The corrupt magus began to radiate concentric circles of tiny portals on the ground around him. As Assassin's natural magic resistance prevented portals from being placed too close to her, each wave of portals painted the servant's position via a trail of clear ground. Being no fool, Assassin maintained her stealth to divert Fortwright's attention to repeatedly casting his portal clusters, and started a series of head-on hit and runs. In a reversal of roles with his servant, Nozumu was now the one assailing Fortwright's backside and flanks. They deliberately left a noticeable rhythm to their attacks, with the servant and master always sprinting inwards together from opposite sides. Fortwright's answer has always been to whip several particularly long chains around his body just as the assailants approached, and he was thrown off when Assassin's attack patterns suddenly changed. Instead of taking time to close in for one deadly strike, she launched several throwing knives that zipped right for the priest's heart and neck. The corrupt magus dodged sideways, but one dart caught him squarely in the collarbone.

Five strands of chains appeared around the priest's shoulder and formed themselves into an iron hand. Just as Nozumu closed in again, the hand plucked out the knife and threw it directly at him. He was so completely caught off-guard that he did not even attempt to dodge as he ran directly into the incoming missile.

The knife plunged into his right eye, leaving it a bloody mess. He howled and stumbled to the ground, clutching the side of his face. Assassin was forced to break off her attack and come to her master's aid, wildly slashing off a wave of marauding chains that attempted to finish Nozumu off.

"Nozumu..." Her husky voice had a low, gritty ring that seemed to contradict her small stature. She half-knelt beside her boy, but did not spare a hand to help him up, but instead clutching her katana to ward off any more iron whips that may come their way. Nozumu shakily sat back up, and tore a strip off his shirt to bandage his face; the quickly-stained cloth did little in the way of triage, but did more to upkeep a strong facade. He was quite disoriented from the throbbing pain, and as his focus swam his posture too swayed with it. Together with Assassin they changed their stance to a defensive one and began retreating out of the sanctum. Portals appeared all around them as they went, but the chains slithering fourth did not overtly interfere beyond a few token harassing attacks.

"Nozumu Ryougi, mage hunter." Fortwright called out in a clear, high sounding voice. "Missing from the association since age nine, and presumed dead. Why are you here?"

"Pretentious, don't you think?" Assassin's low voice rolled out dangerously. "Revealing him to the association but questioning why he's here?"

"Huu. But that's not what I'm asking." Fortwright let out a cold chuckle. "I am asking him for his PURPOSE. He's a weathered young man, surely he is entitled to his own answer." He dismissed his portals and chains and slowly stepped towards his adversaries. "And indeed, just as it is his right to decide his own purpose for himself, so must Mankind supply itself with its own reason of existence. Leaning on the Root just won't do."

"I can observe your failure at converting others." Assassin placed her sword protectively in front of her boy as she gently nudged and dragged him to a slow retreat.

"W-wait." Nozumu wheezed, turned towards the corrupt magus, but did not look at him. He stopped walking backwards, but gestured to Fortwright that he wasn't welcome to come any closer. "There's a lot that I don't understand, Reverend, so start me off with something easy. How did you find me out?"

"Of course." The priest seemed to do a good job of putting on at least a generous front. "How can you expect to escape suspicion? After all, your shop has somehow survived a visit from every servant in the War..."

"One of which had to be working for you." Assassin's bright blue eyes flashed fiercely as she cut him off mid-sentence.

"One that somehow slipped by my eyes?" Nozumu's battered voice still managed to carry a ring of disbelief.

"Correct. My operative hasn't been suspicious of you when he visited, so he would not have run afoul of your Intent Perception. In any case, once I heard there was a high-level combat magus hiding right in the middle of a Grail War, it was a simple matter to research who you might be. It was easier still to arrange for someone from the Association to report you, and send you to hunt me down."

As Fortwright spoke, a dark, otherworldly cesspool pool appeared below the kneeling, vegetative Saber, and the knight slowly sunk under, swallowed gradually by the swirling chaos. The priest quietly said something to the frozen body as it submerged, but it was well outside earshot from the pair of pale-eyed mage hunters standing at the far door.

"_That operative was YOU, Saber. If you have no memory of that, then you must be proud of your remorselessness_."

Nozumu gritted his teeth. The physical trauma was taking its toll. His shirt was soaked with an amount of lost blood that would have slain a lesser man. But that throbbing dullness made him sound weary, and in turn made it easier for him to fake a degree of receptiveness to Fortwright's sermon. "Why?" The boy groaned. "I just don't understand. I wasn't threatening you. I didn't even know you. Why?"

"He thought I was my father." Assassin supplied an answer which Nozumu winced at. "Didn't you, Fortwright? You're certainly not the first."

Fortwright levelled his eyes at Nozumu and his servant as his voice became audible again. "It is a brute fact that the urge to kill runs in your bloodline. You cannot avoid it." As his sentence finished, the knight at his feet disappeared completely into the ground. The priest looked into the wounded master's good eye, and continued to speak, but Nozumu halted his pronouncements.

"But didn't you say we have to choose our own purpose? Why do we have to follow what's passed down to us?" Nozumu was growing weary. He was almost sure that he's got a fever coming on; both that and the loss of blood.

"Right, of course." The priest nodded smoothly. "But what does it mean to choose your own purpose? The choice has to be made by the REAL you."

"That's a bit too deep for me. I'll have to sleep on that." His simple-minded voice would have sounded diplomatic enough, but as the thumping wound addled his senses, the boy's brash tongue slipped and got the better of him. "Meanwhile, the real me has a life to live." He smiled widely as he put an arm around Assassin's shoulders, and weakly waved his short swords in his free hand. "Her and I are just cooks, and these are just cooking knives."

"Is that so?" Fortwright's voice darkened. "If you need to sleep on it, there is plenty of room right here."

"Ugh, come on." The pain was nauseating, and Nozumu was slowly losing his ability to think straight. "Only bad priests force conversions, no?"

"Of course. I will do no such thing."

As the pair of mage hunters stepped outside, a bundle of shackling chains shot after them through the doorway. They would have been able to outrun it, but Nozumu tripped, and was slow in getting up. Assassin made her stand where her master fell, but it seemed doubtful that a single sword could hold off the bulk of the attack.

No one found out if she could have, as a shadowy burst of prana cleaved the bundle at its waist, badly burning the robust doorway in the process.

************************************************************************Chapter End******************************************

*****************************************************************Servant Stat Unlocked: Assassin*********************************

Class: Assassin

Master: Nozumu Kokutou

True Name: Ryougi Mana

Sex: Female

Height/Weight: 162cm, 40kg

Alignment: Neutral

***Parameters:***

Strength: D

Magical Energy: D

Endurance: D

Luck: B

Agility: A

Noble Phantasm: A

***Class Abilities:***

Presence Concealment: A: conceals the servant's presence. An ability rank of A renders her presence completely impossible to detect unless she moves in to attack.

***Skills:***

Mage Hunter: B: allows the servant to act as though she possesses the following skills at rank B while fighting magus-type enemies: Mind's Eye, Magic Resistance, Bravery.

***Noble Phantasms:***

Split Soul: Assassin is descended from a family of mage hunters that are known for exhibiting split personalities. As a rare noble phantasm, she possesses an additional soul. Though this does not play a primary role in combat, having two souls will provide a one-time invulnerable save against a fatal strike. Some magi theorize that the disappearance of one soul may free up additional magic circuits within the body, but that is pure speculation.

Rank: EX

Type: Unique

Range: Self

Target: Self

Into the Void: the Void is a difficult concept, said to be the very gaps of un-existence between the bodies and realms of creation. When Assassin is seen to exhibit the ability to collapse and fold her own body to escape various forms of binding that should have pinned a servant's very sprit in place, one would guess that her body and spirit could only have been outsourced into that very realm of Nothing.

Rank: EX

Type: Unique

Range: Self

Target: Self


	16. Campaign: Relics of Chaos

Author's Note: Edited the end of Chapter 13 to flow over more logically.

***Chapter Begins Here***

"That's the British Museum." Aria looked at the red spot on the dashboard mini-map. "It's on the other side of town, and there's gonna be other police on the way."

"But it's an easy drive." Paul remarked from the co-pilot seat. "Newgate, High Holborn, New Oxford, with no forks off the main road. Coppers are more into lurking about in neighbourhoods these days, so they might not even see you."

From the back of the car, Aria looked at Heinz, who frowned and shook his head lightly after running the suggestion through his head. He stared for a minute at the glowing green dots at the dashboard before turning the digital key.

"It won't be quite as easy as that." Heinz explained to the young blood. "It may be a straight drive to the museum in the curfew-enforced streets, but our transmitter's set to off. If any police sees our wagon but not our pin codes, they'll be on to us. With that in mind we should stay shy of open roads where a naked eye can see us from a kilometre away."

"Makes no difference to me." The scrawny boy shrugged. "As long as we help ourselves to something expensive once we get there." As Paul looked back and fourth between the two troopers, neither one answered him.

"That IS what're going to, right?" The young rascal began to sound worried.

"If you wanna steal shit and live to tell it, quit yappin and keep a straight head." Ever since she bandaged the little punk, Aria noticed that playing big sister was one way to get him to listen and behave. As Paul settled, Aria began steadying her breathing and stretching her muscles in the car's back compartment. The rear windows have been modified to roll downwards instead of opening out, and she pressed them all the way down for her makeshift firing ports. The Panzerfausts lay in neat, belted grooves on the modified base of the car, and low racks of rifles and heavy weapons were firmly secured at angles that couldn't easily be seen from the outside. She quickly ran her eyes and hands over every bolt and lock, making sure that every safety was on, and every grenade strung. She cleared her servant a curt thumbs-up before clicking off the lights, and the vehicle shifted into gear. It zoomed along the roads, rock-steady even at the sharpest turns, with its engines running in a slick, eerie silence.

***Scene Break***

_Urban warfare naturally handicaps one's ability to observe enemy movements. As the fighting ensues, both sides struggle to earn back a portion of their awareness, be it through intelligence, experience, or technology._

_In that sense, having the network radar in front of me was a form of cheating. You can't complain with good conscience that it's too hard to dodge a few green dots, when you know so many good people have died over intel that was nowhere near half as informative. Though I don't blame him, Paul's rather vocal excitement over sneaking so closely past the patrols left me a bit annoyed. _

_"You know, I was thinking." Paul took the opportunity to show off his smarts. "You always go through the coppers, but never around them. Why don't you just go around?"_

_"Sure, you can try." I pulled over briefly to entertain the child. "Go ahead plot a path around the next group of patrols."_

_"I say we go here, and around, like this." He traced half a loop along the edge of the main display screen, along roads that seemed to circumvent the two green dots that sat on the other side of some tall buildings. When I shifted back into gear without a word he eyed the streets and the screen with narrowed eyes, just to make sure that I was really going along the path he plotted. Oh well, he would learn soon enough._

_In the mirror, I saw my master quietly unfastening some of her weapons. I'm sure even without looking at the path the boy chose, she had a sixth sense that something about Paul's plan isn't going to work. But she caught on that I was simply trying to get the brat to not be so full of himself, and so she didn't voice her objections._

_Of course not long after we began to cruise along, the radar started to pick up patrols that were previously outside the sensing range of the receiver. Now on the display screen, Paul's planned route no longer seemed safe at all. From the backseat, Aria wasn't sure how badly I would purposefully let things slip, and so she armed a Panzerfaust and crouched on standby._

_"What? Where'd these come from?" Paul realized something was amiss when I headed directly for a green dot that was too far away to appear beforehand._

_I didn't respond, and waited for him to ask me to stop and pull over._

_"Alright, stop. Stop. Stop!" He blurted as expected. "Alright, alright, I was wrong. But I didn't realize this screen can't see far. If I knew that then I-"_

_I was glad then that my master smartly answered in my stead. Had I talked back to Paul now, I probably would have rubbed off as being vindictively arrogant. "Hey kiddo." Aria put her hand on his gesturing arm. "We ain't saying you can't question orders, but there's a time and place for that. Heinz's got a lot to focus on right now, so you gotta just leave him be and go with what he says. You cool with that?" _

_"Right, I'm sorry." Of course, he behaved because the big sis said so. My master may not have realized this, but she was a born leader, someone of few words who had both the strength of arms as well as character, not to mention common sense. I insist I'm not over-praising her - I've known people who led entire nations for being much less._

_"Nah, it's all good." I replied. I was startled for a second when I heard myself talk. Parts of my master has clearly been rubbing off on me._

_I shifted back into gear and navigated through the green pocket. In any case, with multiple servants running loose in the evening streets, Aria will soon get a proper taste of direct line combat. Arms, armour, and army, everything we've prepared up till now, are going to be put to the test by whatever thing we're headed for. If we win, it'll be definitive proof that our strategy has come to fruition. I was about to devise a fallback in my head should we lose, but then my gaze swimmed over my master's face in the mirror, expressionless save the placid eyes that looked right back at me._

_I stepped on the gas. Fuck fallbacks. We ain't losin' this one._

***Scene Break***

_I packed a machine gun on my back as I dismounted out of the vehicle. After passing a pair of light pistols to Paul, master helped herself to a fancy AK-pattern with a bag full of clips plus a small rack's worth of Panzerfausts. As she rounded out our load out with an assortment of our special grenades and improvised explosives, I yanked out a clumsy pair of infrared binoculars and scanned the museum's massive front yard before giving our strike team the clearance to move ahead._

_The museum's undone, iron-barred front gate was missing a good number of its members near the centre. As we got close, we could see that not all the broken bars snapped off cleanly, and the whole gate was dented and bent. In the distance, empty police cars surrounded the museum's main entrance, and the only present officers we could see were dead ones._

_"First off, it's like somebody just did THIS to it." Master did an illustrative motion of boot-kicking the gate to hold it far away, while pulling a bar savagely towards her. It looked so convincing, that I could well picture her atomizing the gate herself._

_"They did exactly that." I told her. "We're up against Berserker."_

_"Uh, what's that again?" Paul asked from the side._

_"You'll see soon enough." I gestured for him to move inside. "You take point."_

_"Why not." The kid took it as a challenge; it wasn't meant to be one, but so long as it kept him sharp, all was fine. He moved ahead, but kept wary. Whatever took out those coppers could well be still around, possibly hiding in cover amongst the cars, and Paul was no idiot. He instinctively crouched as he approached the circle of vehicles, and eventually went down on all fours. He strained his neck up ahead while prone, so he could look under the cars and make sure there were no moving feet in sight. Although his decision to lower his profile wasn't completely warranted, I still noted his choice favourably. He would be fast enough to pick up the right tricks as we move along._

_Forward we went, past the bodies with broken riot shields, up the cracked stone steps, between enormous pillars, and stopped at the surprisingly unharmed revolving doors. All the police that were alive have foolishly stormed inside, but that was good for us. As we go in after them, their wasted equipment and incompetent bodies littered along the way would serve as markers, warning signs, or even reloading stockpiles. Without further delay, I began to push the revolving doors._

_"Hey, wait, hang on. Is that some security?"_

_Paul's sudden voice almost gave me a scare. I stopped in my tracks just before going into the rotator, and looked over his way. He was looking suspiciously at a small, white-painted, flashing light device behind the pushing door on a nearby side wall corner. The fluorescent lighting inside the spacious lobby made the tiny flashing red bulb nearly invisible but as soon as I laid one look at it my hair was standing on end._

_"MASTER, STOP!" I called out to Aria immediately. Root be thanked, she was in the middle of trying to figure out how to fit her weapons through the revolving entrance, and so hasn't yet taken a step. She looked up at me, eyes briefly wide, before shifting her twinkling eyes wildly around her to figure out just what the danger was. _

_"Schisse." I cursed my unforgivable oversight before addressing Paul with a formal salute. If he didn't understand my gesture, my words plus a pat on the shoulder made it amply clear. _

_"You fucking saved us, kid. I owe you one."_

***Scene Break***

_One by one, we opened the pushing door only slightly, squeezed through, and crawled under the infrared tripwire that was placed at waist's height. No one needed to be told specifically to avoid the loose-looking tiles on the floor, although Paul did ask me about the entire trap shortly after to understand just what exactly did he sniff out._

_"You see there?" Safe inside the building and far away from the door now, I turned him back around and handed him the infrared binoculars. Through its woozy lenses, Paul would see a line of reddish laser beaming out from the wall-mounted gadget, cutting parallel to the row of front entrances, two swing doors and one revolver together._

_"Whoa, That invisible laser kills us?"_

_"No. It sets off all the hi-explosives rigged around the entrance, behind and under all those loose tiles and bricks."_

_"That is some sick shit." My master mumbled on the side. She has long guessed what the thing was, but moreover she now caught on to how viciously the tripwire was actually placed, just before I explained it to the junior._

_"You see how the laser is placed JUST beyond the revolving door? Imagine if you had two to three people going through it, and the first person in line spots the trap at the last moment. It would be absolutely no use, since the person behind him will keep going, slam the leader out into the tripwire, and detonate everything."_

_"Wow..."_

_"It doesn't stop there." I continued. "Do you notice how both swinging doors have an opaque metal frame? Those frames automatically set off the wire if you open the doors widely enough."_

_"What I don't get is this." Aria thought out loud. "Why would the police screw around with people who wants to come in from outside? They clearly think Berserker is holed up here, 'cuz they've sent people in. Shouldn't they focus on killing people who try to escape from the inside to out, and not the other way?"_

_"Two things." I explained. "First, even if Berserker took out every officer inside, the door might get her on her way out. Second, if anyone tried to interfere with the officers outside and somehow managed to kill their blockading team, the door trap will target the interlopers as well."_

_Aria and Paul nodded; I wanted to make sure they realized the main lesson, so I said it plainly. "At the very least, the police are led by a real professional, so we can't let down our guard."_

_"Gotcha. Let's get moving." Master called to us and took the lead; I took a museum map off the nearby shelf before falling in behind her. We defaulted our course deeper into the main hall, and explored the wide open square of grand staircases and gift shops. I couldn't shake the suspicion that some kind of strategic target lurked in the display zones in the wings off to the side, but I wasn't too anxious to start the mission in a zone obscured by excessive cover that could handicap ranged combat._

_"This is the part where we look for clues, right?" Paul inquired as we headed for the wide flight of marble white stairs that led to the upper level._

_"You could say that." I motioned Paul to walk in the middle while I covered the rear. "We're going to head up to high ground. It'll serve as a vantage point against anyone on the main floor." As we slowly climbed the steps, readying our guns and explosives for anything that might lurk around the corner, Aria suddenly froze near the top of the stairs. In a second she was moving ahead at a steady pace again, but markedly more wary._

_"Contact three o' clock, beyond the walls." As she announced quietly, I felt the presence too. It was vague and fleeting, but there was no doubt. Servant._

_"Stay put, kid." Aria gestured with her hand but kept moving steadily. Paul wanted to argue but I gripped his shoulder to sink the message in. "She's right." I whispered. "Stay out of sight and don't die on us. We can't afford to lose you." With that, the child finally halted, and crouched down without a word._

_Master and I forged ahead, moving through an open dining area atop the staircase before coming to the entrance of a complex of display rooms. "Map?" Master called out curtly in a half-whisper, and I obliged with a quick run-down of the floor plan._

_"We came straight to the third floor, here." I pointed to a rectangular ring of rooms on the rightmost leaf of the pamphlet. "The stairs led us to the centre of the floor, and the display rooms are in a rectangular ring around us, with the only entrance right where we are."_

_"Right." Master grabbed the map and mulled over it for a second before nodding to herself. "We're in the Mesopotamia section, and we sensed them around the corner to our right. That puts them in the Europe displays. Let's go." She folded the map with her free right hand and lithely took point up ahead. She held the gun in her left - yet another thing saying how she took everything I've said to heart._

_We expected to find Berserker at the end of the hall, but we were greeted by an unfamiliar face. A tall, red-haired young woman in silver plate stood in the middle of a ring of display cases, eyeing us coldly. There was a dematerialized presence behind the stranger, and Aria promptly transmuted the tall girl's hidden servant out of hiding. He had the attire of a Roman legionnaire, but without the plumed helm nor the gladius. What he held for a weapon instead was a black-tipped spear, with glowing crimson cracks along a polished silver shaft that constantly bled drops of blood that were somehow sucked back inside before it could reach the tip and drip down. The Lancer servant was a tall, rugged young man with a smooth angular chin and light, short hair. He was ever so slightly shaken at being forced into materialization, but composed himself._

_"Come for the relics?" The armoured master began to ask._

_"Nope." Aria opened fire._

***Scene Break***

Paul couldn't just bring himself to lie still while the roar of guns from the other side of the wall pounded through the concrete and into his ears. Instinctively, even though the magical folks told him to stay put, it felt much safer to stay on the move, lest something nasty blows down the walls and expose him. Paul tightened the buckles on his explosives-filled backpack so that they would shake less and make less sound as he moved, before tiptoeing up the stairs. Having his pistols in firmly in hand emboldened him just enough so that he was no longer overtly panicking.

Wasn't he supposed to take point? Now that he was left behind, it was clear that those two didn't think very highly of him. But he supposed that it was to be expected; they were psychics and con artists after all, so they'd naturally think high of themselves and low of other commoners in turn. He should have been content enough that they've took him onboard for whatever reason and seemed to be looking out for him, but nevertheless Paul wasn't going to just let it stop there.

Being more of the running type, he'd normally be afraid to approach a place where shots were flying. Had they asked him to come along, there was always the possibility that he might bail out on them. But now, being left behind made him feel spurned, and the urge to prove himself pushed him forward.

He checked the wide assortment of explosives in his backpack. Some of them he figured out how to use after a bit of careful probing; others looked too dangerous to experiment with, so he didn't touch those. They all seemed stable enough though; or else they couldn't be carried so leisurely in a backpack. As he re-tucked everything neatly and cleanly, and tightly buckled the bag straps to his body, he could feel the steady infusion of adrenaline. Just toying with these gadgets made him feel as professional as those who made and used them, and that gave him confidence, and kept him alert and sharp.

Paul looked around the third floor from the platform outside the display halls. He did overhear from that German guy that the halls wrapped around in a rectangle; for now he took the left fork, and followed the path so that he might approach the fighting from the back.

He felt he was going to do something that'll really impress the gun-lady and her damned know-it-all sidekick. Even though he had no solid plans of how that will go about.

***Scene Break***

The torrent of prana-enriched rounds drove Lancer and his master into cover behind a metre-tall concrete display stand. Aria's suppressive fire has given Heinz the needed time to set up his heavy machine gun. As soon as Lancer emerged from hiding to attack, Aria and Heinz promptly opened fire on him. The move had its intended effect; Lancer seemed to hesitate briefly about who to attack before ducking back into cover, as it wasn't so obvious who was the easier target.

"Forward, Lancer. Faith is your shield." Lancer's master possessed a tone of certainty, but it was neither bombastic nor zealous. As Lancer emerged from hiding a second time, an illuminating glow seemed to wash over him from his feet to his head, scraping the dull gold sheen of his armour into a radiant silver. Ammunition that hit his new aura slowed to a near halt and were mostly swatted away by Lancer's bare hands. Aria could feel some kind of prana flowing into Lacer from the armoured master hiding behind the concrete block, but did not stop firing her gun at Lancer.

At this late in the Grail War, Aria and Heinz have long developed various established procedures to engage in a fight. A key part of any doctrine against melee opponents is to seize the initiative, suppress the enemy with pinning fire and let Heinz absorb the first hit when the enemy retaliates. By then, enough time could be bought to either understand the foe better or to just finish the fight outright. Now by continuing to fire and not reacting to Lancer's new look and increased toughness, she hoped to make herself a less obvious target. The rest of this step was up to Heinz.

Heinz stopped firing, whipped out his backpack, and reached inside. Lancer lunged for Heinz, which seemed a matter of common sense. Whatever surprise Heinz had hidden in his backpack, Lancer couldn't risk the possibility of having it brought to bear. In light of this, no matter how briefly Heinz fumbled with his bag, the move was an obvious opening that must be exploited. But just as Lancer charged forward, Heinz threw the entire bag at him. The bag was tossed at an angle such that if Lancer ducked out of the way, it would hit the cover where Lancer's master was hiding. Making a fast judgement on the spot, Lancer used his precise martial skills to flick the bag out of the way - light enough to not detonate anything that might be inside, but forceful enough such that it changed course and was now headed for Aria.

Heinz meanwhile has jumped forward from his firing post to engage Lancer in hand-to-hand combat. As Heinz stretched out his hand, as if trying to wrestle Lancer's exposed spear, Lancer released his noble phantasm. As the same time, Heinz did so as well. The two servants clashed in a display of magic.

"Lancea... LONGINI!"

Lancer's agility began to ramp up quickly as he propelled himself backwards, bounced himself off the wall behind him, and sprung back forward again. He became so fast on his way back to Heinz that he was a continuous line of silver, accompanied by a trail of blood that constantly spilled out from inside the sanguine cracks that ran along his Lance.

Even with his servant-level reflexes, Heinz could barely see the attack coming. The only thing that saved him was the tactical judgement that anticipated Lancer's move well ahead of time. Just before Lancer's attack could hit home with the strength that would shame a missile, Heinz deployed his 'Rider's Cross' at full power.

"Ritterkreuz!" He called out in a voice as discreet and plain as the incantation would allow. A large, immaterial ritual circle stood up in between the two servants. The crimson projection saw concentric outlines of counter-rotating cogs and treads, inside of which was a red, eerily translucent pair of wings surrounded by the tracings of twenty-four oak leaves. As Lancer rammed into the circle, a cross-shaped shield solidified and blunted him in a loud clash of metal. The sudden impulse left Lancer briefly stunned; and as Aria opened fire on him again his silvery aura began to fade, and light wounds began to appear on him.

The cross-shaped shield shattered but the ritual circle lingered behind. As Heinz stepped back to his machine gun and fired at the opposite wall, the heavy rounds bounced off the cement and into the cover where Lancer's master hid. Everyone could hear her grunt in pain, but then the armoured master stood up and stepped out of her refuge, surrounded by the same aura that coated Lancer seconds ago. Heinz was quick to notice that this aura no longer seemed to be active on Lancer. Still, Aria's side was in trouble. The enemy was no longer suppressed or surprised, and the opening blitz didn't put in too much damage. With rifle still firing in semi-auto bursts, Aria picked up the backpack at her feet. Lancer must have not known that the prana-explosives in this bag are super-stable until armed, but that was just too bad for him.

Aria dug her hand into the bag to grab a grenade; after all that gruesome work, fashioning these things from dead bodies, they had better serve their uses, and they had better serve their uses now.

Except, she found the bag completely empty. Trying not to panic, she squashed the bag under her feet in disgust and kept firing, but then she caught on to Heinz's real plan. He had intended to use Paul for something all along; he must have dumped all his grenades into Paul's explosives bag right from the get-go when they left the van. Still her old concern cropped up again; was the little kid really okay on his own?

A hissing sound trailed a canister from the chamber behind Lancer, and the room began to quickly fill with smoke. The gas was so acrid that it forced Aria's eyes tightly shut, and sent her into a wheezing cough. She felt a familiar hand grabbing her by the wrist, and leading her out of the room just before shockwaves from the prana detonation sent her sprawling down on the floor.

***Scene Break***

Heinz helped Aria up as the smoke cleared. Aria was alarmed that Lancer remained standing, but she took note of the gaping hole torn in the servant's chest. His fighting strength was gone; he was leaning on his spear, using the last bit of energy he had to just keep himself standing. He had perhaps seconds to live, and no look in his eyes suggested any intent to spitefully fight to the bitter end.

His master lay at his feet in a broken heap, soaked in her own blood with her lower body blown clean off. She stirred weakly, proving that she was still alive, but her time too was almost up.

"I've failed." Lancer hung his head, his voice just short of being overtly rueful. "Forgive me master, I didn't know what I was doing."

"No... you did... well." The dying master's voice was strained, but still stubbornly well-enunciated. Even as she tried to reassure him, Lancer's body faded to a translucent, milky gold, faded into glitters and sparks, and then was no more.

Aria wanted to ask the woman what she meant by 'relics,' lest it be something important; but then she changed her mind and decided to leave quietly as a shaken Paul trotted back to her side. It would be cruel to talk to the enemy now. She has dashed whatever wish that woman had and fatally injured her; the least she could do was to leave her alone. As she began to walk away she had to make a conscious effort to steady herself; that master wasn't just any common scum that was asking to be shot, so the kill weighted on her rather heavily. Aria sighed; there would be four or five more fights ahead that would be exactly like this, so it was best to focus on the present and take things as they come.

"W-wait..."

The dying master's arm was weakly raised, and her voice came out hoarse and strained. Aria turned around, and looked back silently.

"You must... defeat Berserker. Destroy...his relic..."

Aria has intended to avoid conversation, and now she didn't know what to say. She just stood there, and allowed her opponent to finish her thought.

"The relic is a manuscript... destroy it before... it's too late." She dropped her arm then; Aria wasn't sure if she just died, but either way she had nothing left to say.

"Thanks for the tip. We'll try." Aria called out, not really certain or caring whether the master was already dead. She turned around wearily at her companions and gave a weak nod.

"Good job. Let's move on."

***Scene Break***

Executrix Ardria was dying. Slowing it down with preservation rites prolonged her pain, but it gave her the time to offer a prayer.

But she was suddenly at a loss on what to pray for. Was the world that claimed her knight worth saving? When she had been little, it was the dream of being with her knight that made her endure the convent. She trained hard to become a holy knight of the Church, for the sole reason of following his footsteps. More than anything, it was her knight, her guardian saint, whom she believed in above all, but now he was gone.

What reason then, to pray for this world? What was the purpose? As the protection aura around her began to dim and fade once more, she no longer tried to re-cast it to delay the inevitable. She lay there for Lord knows how long, dying slowly and painfully, until she heard a boy's voice in the distance.

"By the Root! What's happened here!"

She saw a hand reach down towards her. Her vision was becoming blurred. She tried to raise her own hand, to grip her knight so that he could carry her away. But then she stopped.

She wasn't seeing spirits; nor was this boy her Lancer. His stiff, blue-and-white long coat wasn't anything like what Lancer would ever wear. She could barely make out the long, soft, golden hair that hung down the side of his face, and the vague sheen of large verdant eyes. She was in too much pain to sense his presence, but just from how he called on God with a pagan title, he was no doubt a mage.

Perhaps, a master.

***Scene Break***

As soon as Aria and her companions returned to the central hall on the first floor, she felt a creeping, seeping, choking presence festering behind the the stone-wrought walls in the direction of the Greek and Assyrian display halls to the west. She tensed and turned to Heinz, who simply nodded at her, promising no fear of going forward. Paul, being no mage, was oblivious to the presence, but he could tell from the other's faces that something was wrong.

"There's something inside that way, isn't there?"

"Yes. Something very bad." Heinz mumbled darkly.

"Going to leave me behind again, aren't you?"

"Yeah, that's the idea."

"Hey, why?" Paul was indignant. "I was fine back there, wasn't I? I mean-"

Aria patted his shoulder. "Part of the plan, dull kid." In case her words weren't clear enough, she threw in a sly wink to make sure.

"Oh, oh, I see." Paul began to understand. Same routine as last time, then?

"You're the expert in sneaking about, not us." Heinz gave one last tip before going off to take point far ahead. "Remember, they can't sense you, but they can still see. Use your head."

"Yeah, yeah, I got this." Paul took a map and went off on his own. Aria stared at his backside for a second before moving to join Heinz at the showroom entrance.

"How come you're so sure that the kid's gonna stay in one piece?" She finally asked out loud, now that the Paul was out of earshot. "You didn't even explain him the strategy! Is that really alright?"

"Trust me, master. In every war, battles are won at ground zero, by the very soldiers who can think for themselves."

"Think for themselves huh?" Aria mumbled. "Well I hope you're right honey, cuz the kid ain't done nothin' wrong."

"Yeah, I know what you're sayin', but I think it's all gonna work out. Come on." Heinz jumped from hiding to scout the first hallway even as he spoke, leaving Aria briefly stunned.

"Wait, did you just-" Aria was about to break into an amused grin, but saw that Heinz has already moved ahead. She jumped out after him, readying her rifle as she moved.

There was no contact in the first long hallway. Aria put a stopping hand on an unusually hot-headed Heinz before he could move into the second. "You figured the map yet?"

"Yeah. Five strips of hallways, and we're in the first. This path ahead cut all five halls through the middle; if we look on either side, we are likely to catch the enemy."

"Gotcha. Let's move."

***Scene Break***

The went down the path, checking down each aisle on both sides. Aria took the north forks while Heinz took the southern ones, but they didn't dare wander too far from each other. In the end, there has been no visual contact, but the miasmic foul aura continued to mount, and hung thickly in the air.

"They're near. I can feel them." Aria whispered to Heinz as the paused to a stop at the end of the west-most hall. "But where did we miss?"

"The pocket behind the corner down here, room thirteen, right at the end of the hall we just passed by. They're almost certainly there."

"Let's do this." Aria tightened the buckles on her backpack, secured her ammo clips, and led the way down the hall. The thick, oppressive aura hung in the air, and became stronger with each step. The majority of the large room ahead was hidden around a corner, but the presence that could be felt oozing fourth pinpointed itself right in the room, just beyond where they could see. Aria thought that she could hear the sound of groans coming around, but it was faint enough that it might have been her imagining things.

Her discreet approach was cut short by a dry chuckle from beyond the wall.

"I see we have guests. Come now, don't be shy."

Aria was about to answer and step into the chamber, but Heinz halted her with a hand. Deftly, he assembled his machine gun tripod in seconds and rushed into the room first. Had the man inside attacked on sight, Heinz's noble phantasm would have negated the first hit. However, the slender, red-haired young man calling to them inside remained casual, even as Aria frantically caught up to her servant, unwilling to see him come to harm.

The room was a harrowing sight. A few gutted corpses lay strewn about, but more numerous were the live bodies, tied down and muted with mouth-cloth, frantically trying to call out but only managing muffled, choking groans. These kidnapped policemen were arranged in a large semicircle around Berserker and her master. Aria fought the churning feeling in her stomach as she saw that more than one prisoner has been cruelly staked into the walls, and were slowly dying.

"Oh, it's YOU! The sneaky couple from the tea shop!" The shaky mage stretched his thin-lipped mouth in an euphoric grin, and coupled it with an unsettlingly relaxed voice. "Now, before we get on to the formalities, I regret to inform you that our favourite snack bar has closed down, and its owner, dead. May I suggest relocating your dating spot into the afterlife?"

"What the fuck ARE you?" Aria took aim with her rifle, but sheer disgust compelled her to begin with questions. "And what does killin' a friggin' waiter have ANYTHING to do with the Grail?"

"Mistake number one, you've assumed that the shopkeeper was uninvolved. He was in fact the master of Assassin." As the red-haired master continued to speak, Aria wondered why this psychopath hasn't simply given his servant a kill order like he did the last two times they've met. "Mistake number two, you've assumed that I'm after the Grail. Grail Wars rarely allow two mistakes, and you are lucky that I haven't used them against you."

"So you're not after the Grail. Are you after the relic then?" Aria asked coldly. He seemed so self-assured, that he seemed to have completely lowered his guard. Nevertheless Aria remained wary, as there could very well be some kind of trap.

"Relics. Plural." The lean master grinned. "That church woman must have done a poor job explaining it to you. But no matter." He stared indifferently at the guns trained on him, and shrugged as he went on. "One book is the key to summoning this world's next god. The other book is a fitting sacrifice, a catalyst of sorts. Both of which have already been delivered to a priest of our Order. Now, I'll offer you one chance to join us. You've survived this far, you're strong enough to be an individual, and you've earned the right to live...forever." The preaching master walked over to a near-dead body, casually removed the stake that impaled it to the wall, and jadedly watched the beaten corpse slump to the ground.

Aria noted that the body was wearing a slightly fancier uniform than the others - so much for being wary of the professional who rigged the door-trap.

"Join us, sister." As the young mage rambled on, he dipped his hands in the still-warm blood of the lying body, and playfully rubbed them dry until the iron-smelling blood crusts fell to the ground in a dry, disgusting shower that left his hands mostly clean once more. "These mortals are amongst the masses that won't make the cut into our paradise. Do you see how free I am, and how meaningless they are in light of me? Once you cross over, you too can freely relish the meaninglessness of everything that you will leave behind. Will you not join us, and see for yourself?"

Up until now Aria has held her fire out of pity and disgust. But she's seen and heard more than enough.

"I'll pass." By the time the words came off her tongue, she has already emptied her first burst.

***Scene Break***

The heads of two hostages splattered against the walls and their bodies fell limp. The prana-enriched rounds should have landed squarely on the opposing master's face, but he was somehow re-routing his prisoners' vitality onto himself, and diverting damage away in turn. Berserker needed no order to leap at Aria's throat, and Heinz blunted her promptly with Rider's Cross.

"To cover!" Aria and Heinz instinctively yelled at each other as they bailed out of the room to widen their distance against the servant that was clearly deadly up close. As Berserker gave chase at frightening speed, Heinz turned around half way down the hall to slow the enemy servant down. Aria turned around a second later to find Heinz badly outmatched in hand-to-hand fighting. In a single clash, Berserker's bladed gauntlet seized and snapped Heinz's short army knife in a surprising display of dexterity, and pummelled her other fist at Heinz's face, which the latter was barely able to dodge.

"HEAVY COVER NOW!" Aria shouted at Heinz, who obeyed and ran for a complex of stone coffins and concrete stands around a massive pillar nearby. Though faster and more powerful, the automaton servant had trouble keeping up with Heinz's wily footwork as he weaved a looping patch through the field of obstacles, always keeping some impedance between himself and Berserker's fists at every turn.

Berserker's master followed Aria and Heinz out of his room and began to walk down the hall towards them. "If you choose to side with the worthless, not even your life can afford the price of my wasted breath!" He roared. "If you will not serve as a champion, you will serve as a sacrifice!"

"BERSERKER!" The madman proceeded to scream his order. "Dematerialize through the stones if you have to! Chase him down and squash him!"

That was the opportunity Aria was waiting for. There was no time for her to take visual cue, and she simply assumed that Berserker instantly dematerialized and was already moving through something hard. She sharpened her mind, homed in on the general area where Heinz stood, and made her transmutation. Berserker was forced out of phase in a flash, and appeared stuck inside the massive pillar. The energy backlash from displacing solid rock should have torn Berserker to ribbons; but through the sheer force of the massive amounts of od circulating through the servant's body, her body held, and began to break free. The massive pillar began to crack and fracture around her inhuman might, though her blood gushed out in fountains from every stone crack around her body, testament that Aria's tactic has put in a great deal of damage.

Her master shouted her name a second time, and she disappeared from her prison and rematerialized beside her master. She was riddled in scrapes and wounds, but she stood upright in front of him and held her posture stoically.

Aria caught sight of the red flash that blazed on the lunatic's hand briefly before it disappeared, and she knew it to be a command seal. Apparently, despite it being more or less clear that Berserker has plenty of fight left, and likely would have broken free without grievous wounds, the master chose to spend an expensive command seal to retreat her. Aria recalled the scene from the snack bar, where she saw the placid, patient boy spoon-feeding a vegetative girl. But she pushed the picture out of her head; there would be plenty of time to pity him after he's dead.

"I can heal her countless times, but your trick works only once." The master threw Aria a venomous glare, and clenched his hand into a claw as he bared his teeth in a crooked grin. But just as when he lifted his other hand towards the room where he placed all his hostages, the chamber exploded in a torrent of fire and raw ignited mana. The mana currents that drafted down the hall carried the smell of charred flesh to the combatants almost instantly.

"This isn't over!" The deranged youth raised a clenched hand towards Aria and Heinz, and they felt a vertigo wash over them. The window was not long enough for Berserker to make kills, but it was ample distraction for her master to run away with her in tow. The blood mage charged ahead of his servant, barged past Heinz with a vicious punch, ushered Berserker towards the un-trapped, unguarded northern museum back entrance, and disappeared.

Paul emerged from the clearing smoke and made his way to Aria, who shook him by the shoulders like an angry parent. "How could you kill the hostages? They couldn't do anything!"

"This is the thanks I get for saving you?" Paul bit back with something Aria has no answer for. The boy has lost his patience after feeling like he's been talked down to for the past six hours. "Wasn't it you who told me to keep a straight head? Well, the straight head says those half-dead coppers were all going to bite it within seconds anyhow. Leave them alive and that psychotic bastard would have conjured god-knows-what! So what did I do wrong? This can't be the first time you've seen people die! You left that woman back there literally in pieces and you didn't even blink! So what's gotten into you NOW?"

"Leave her be, Paul." Heinz intervened. "She's had a really long night, and she's worn out. Let's not bother her." As Heinz led Paul away, Aria strained her face hard to not let loose the tears that were welling behind her eyes. For a while she stared blankly into space, searching her mind for some evidence, some assurance, that she wasn't the same as the master she just fought. But she found neither clear evidence to hold onto, nor solid assurance to ground herself upon.

********************************************************************************Chapter End**********************************

*************************************************************************Servant Stat Unlocked: Lancer***************************

Class: Lancer

Master: Valine Ardria

True Name: Longinus

Sex: Male

Height/Weight: 180cm, 65kg

Alignment: Neutral Good

***Parameters:***

Strength: B

Magical Energy: B

Endurance: D

Luck: B

Agility: A

Noble Phantasm: B

***Class Abilities:***

Magic Resistance: E: provides minor protection against basic magic.

***Skills:***

Saint: B: signifies being known as a saint. This manifests in a holy shroud that grants increased resistance to curses, fire, and dark magic. In addition, Lancer receives increased effects from blessings and benedictions.

Communion: B: affinity with the master will build at a faster than normal rate. More severe commands of a 'good' nature can be issued without resorting to a command seal.

***Noble Phantasms:***

Lancea Longini: known commonly as the Holy Lance. As told in the Scriptures of the Holy Church, this is the very weapon that pierced the flesh of the Saviour at the dawn of the Common Era. In combat, no amount of agility or luck can help in evading this weapon, and no amount of divinity can grant a save. However, as this isn't a cursed weapon that guarantees kills, it is possible to survive its attack. A target's best chance is to stand his ground and defend, and meet the lance's judgement head-on.

Rank: B

Type: Anti-Unit

Range: 1 – 40

Target: 1


	17. Fate: Starfall Makes Nine

"Are you all right, Ervin?" Archer could tell that Ervin was somehow not feeling well. Or rather, something bothered him.

"It's the same old, mate." Ervin shook his head and sighed uneasily. "That same feeling that comes and goes when we wander these streets after dark."

"As if there's something lurking around us?"

"Right, but I can't make out where or what."

Archer has been taking Ervin fully seriously right from the start. "This may be difficult to answer, but is it clear which of your senses are agitated by this force?"

"Hmm." Ervin straightened out his feelings briefly. "It's hard to say. All I understand is that something out there is putting me on edge. Every time this Root-know-what makes a stir, ALL my senses seem to jump for awhile, but even then I can't pinpoint what's happened."

"I see. I'll be on full alert as always." As Archer took point ahead of Ervin as they resumed their patrol, the veteran swordsman silently wondered just what manner of witchery was Ervin really sensing. Whatever presence his master felt was eluding Archer completely, and this did not rest easy with him.

***Scene Break***

_"Arrgh!"_

_Ervin's sudden groan made me freeze in place. I needn't turn around to attend to him just yet, for I knew he was still beside me. Instead I stayed perfectly still and scanned the area around us to get a sense of just what was threatening my master. But just as before, I sensed nothing in the dark, vacant streets._

_"What was that?" My master thought out loud as he pulled himself to his feet. Far be it for me to cause doubt in my own master by asking 'what was what,' I simply turned around to look at him, as a gesture that my ears were open for whatever explaination he had to offer._

_"It's almost the same sound, mate." Ervin began cryptically. "It's like the same growl that Nightmare likes to make every time you trace it. I could feel it ringing still, echoing in my chest."_

_My first thought was that I've never HEARD anything from that sword. But Root forbid if I told him that bluntly, as the whole point was to make him not second-guess himself. "I see." I nodded lightly. "Which direction did the sound come from?"_

_"Down south, from the museum." My master sounded certain._

_We looked at each other then, and started walking. We needed no words to understand that that's where we're heading next. As we hurried along, it struck me that the British Museum could potentially be a warehouse of Noble Phantasms. I kept the idea in mind, hoping against hope that the Root has mercifully left me some kind of rewarding side-quest that would help in my main mission._

_Ervin led me through the tunnelling northern back door of the enormous museum complex. As soon as we entered the vast, brightly lit main hall, the hungering presence seeping out from the labyrinthine display halls to my right blunted me like a hammer in the face. I vaguely felt ripples of counteracting presences swimming in its shadow, yet they were but footnotes under the unsettling mist that enveloped them._

_My master stirred and took a single heavy breath, and for a moment I thought that he too was reacting to the oppressive voracity that radiated from beyond the walls._

_"There it is again." He declared. "A pure tone now, a high note." He pointed his hand up and to the left, two stories above, completely away from the gorged presence that I had been focused on. He met the unknown in silence as he nimbly moved ahead, up the spiralling flights of white marble stairs with me closely behind._

***Scene Break***

_"By the Root! What's happened here?"_

_The display room that Ervin has led me to was in ruins, ripped apart by a vicious explosion. The centrepiece of Ervin's horror was half a body lying in the room, still faintly twitching. The instant my master saw the armoured woman's dying body, attending to her became his top priority. The doomed patient looked harmless enough; so I only kept one eye on my master while I surveyed the room with my other. The floor was a mess of shattered glass and diced cement; all the display stands that weren't part of the wall have been levelled to broken stumps, and their featured treasures atomized and buried. I was also mindful of the swirling presences on the far floor below, but it was hard to tell what was happening. I reinforced my hearing, in hopes of catching the sound of their battle, but thanks to the vast museum's insular acoustics, I couldn't make out anything._

_Meanwhile I fully noted the dying girl's extreme vitality, and how the od in her body must be passively delaying her death. I also had more than a clear idea on just how her death will be like: slow and painful. She raised a hand hesitantly before dropping it back down, as Ervin knelt before her._

_"Not all right at all, are you?" Ervin asked as gently as he could._

_"Are you a... master?" She ignored Ervin's question completely._

_"Yes. Yes I am. Is there anything you need?"_

_"Kill... Jacob Bathory. Destroy... relic..."_

_"Berserker?" Ervin muttered under his breath._

_"My master makes no guarantees, executrix." I cut in from the side. I've noticed a carved sigil of the Holy Church on her armour, and I suddenly grew wary of her. Succinctly put, I've had terrible run-ins with members of her organization in the past, especially that Kotomine Kirei back in the fifth war._

_"Executrix?" Ervin paused briefly. "Oh, sorry, Reverend. Archer's a good chap, don't mind him." He continued a one-sided conversation with her, perhaps hoping that it would ease her passing. I quietly shut out Ervin's voice, for I didn't have the heart to tell him otherwise; chances are that her withering magic circuits were running static through her head, rotting away concepts, memories, cognition, and even people's names. If the Root has any mercy on her, my master won't hit a topic that piques her interest; or else she would suffer greatly as her mind repeatedly fails to decipher the words that enter her soul._

_Yeah, I know what that's like._

_I took another look around the room. Just what was it that drew my master here? Thinking back to how Ervin said the sound resembled Nightmare, I reasoned that the source of this might have been a sword of some kind. I knelt down on the floor and began to clear away the random pieces of rubble._

_Suddenly Ervin spun around and looked at me with wide eyes, as if something just happened. How he turned his entire body while in a crouch was unusually swift for him, and I then recalled him saying that the mystery presence distorted his senses. As he stared at me, and then down at the pile of rubble beneath my hand, I quickly dug the cement debris aside._

_Our eyes rested on the hilt of a broken sword. Though its age looked ancient, it was a bold design with no obvious crossguard. At a glance it was immediately clear why the pommel, handle, and the wide base of the blade survived until now, while the blade itself was long gone. The surviving components was made from a single piece of carved diamond, with a watery sheen that glowed in the lamplights. The missing blade of the weapon was presumably made of steel, and thus has not survived through the ages._

_The sound of a loud explosion rocked the entire building, and I vaguely felt the pressure of Bathory's infernal presence recede._

_"Don't waste time." The executrix moaned. "Stop Berserker."_

_"But bombs are going off. I can't just leave you here." Ervin shook his head._

_"Silly!" She gritted her teeth. I was just amazed that she still wasn't dead; it was ultimately a waste of a good magus, I supposed, but there was sadly little room to feel concern for a stranger. I stood up to leave, suggesting that Ervin do the same, but then her next words caught my attention._

_"Bathory is headed... for Westminster Abbey. If you do not stop him... this timeline is finished."_

_As I paused to ponder those words, Ervin held the battered hilt against his ears, but I couldn't tell if he was still hearing notes in his head. But then he looked to the executrix, and rested the hilt on her chest._

_"This suits you well, Reverend, elegant and strong."_

_I cringed. Did Ervin realize how terrible his remark was?_

_"And in pieces. How appropriate." She laughed bitterly, and coughed blood as she did so. As my master stammered, she sighed heavily and looked at him._

_"You won't stop Berserker. Not like this." She sounded resigned, as if she was letting go, and I couldn't blame her. "Who are you anyway?"_

_"Ervin. Ervin Cambrian."_

_"I... see." She mumbled something and stared at my master, before handing the hilt back to him. She ran her hand around his face, before making a gesture of benediction on his chest. As she exhaled again, I thought she might yet say something more. But her mouth froze, and her eyes stopped blinking._

_Ervin closed her eyes and walked up beside me with the hilt in his hand. "Berserker next?"_

_"That might be wise. What she could not tell us, Bathory will."_

_"Oh and." I added as I broke into a brisk walk. "If everyone in this timeline is at stake, we'd better hurry."_

***Scene Break***

"Master." Archer finally broke his meditative silence as they made their way south towards the abbey. "I think I know what's been keeping you on edge all this time."

"That so?" Ervin briefly stopped in his tracks. "Let's hear it."

"I think since the start of the war, your body has been reacting to certain weapons when they're nearby." Archer explained. "It was either Rider's bow, or Saber's sword. You always claim to hear or feel something affecting your senses, and more often than not another servant would then soon show up."

"Could it be?" Ervin's verdant eyes narrowed as he tried to wrap his head around the possibility.

"We can test." Archer offered immediately. "Close your eyes."

Ervin closed his eyes, and soon felt a ringing feeling resounding in his chest. "Is it a weapon?" Archer made no reply, but Ervin could feel his senses gradually growing sharper. "The weapons are changing." He realized, as his faculties continued to grow more sensitive. "You're right, Archer! I can sense you're changing weapons! Sometimes I hear their rings, too!"

Still Archer made no reply. Suddenly he traced the bamboo training sword, Torashinai, right behind Ervin and brought it down in a lightening slash.

But even with his eyes closed, Ervin slipped right out of the sword's cutting path.

"Interesting." Archer was briefly deep in thought. Ervin opened his eyes, giving away the look that it has all boggled his mind. "You're right, mate. All your projections put me terribly on edge, save the last one. I couldn't feel the last one at all."

"Ervin." The servant had to fight to keep his own excitement in check. "It appears I've overlooked an impossibly rare gift. You are, quite simply, a living detector for noble phantasms."

Ervin revelled in the discovery briefly before turning solemn again. "But Archer, how will that help us?"

"Do not try to suppress the so-called uneasy feeling when you sense other weapons." Archer did not directly answer his question. "It seems that your reflexes heighten when you hear noble phantasms make normally inaudible sounds."

"That...that may be." Ervin was still in quite of bit of surprise.

"The theory is that." Archer assumed a serious lecture pose as he went into technical details, which Ervin listened to with a measure of studious seriousness. "Many legendary weapons were forged with magecraft-tempered metals. All metals ring when they are disturbed, but the ringing sounds also have overtones that are above or below the hearing thresholds. It seems that your ears can occasionally hear those borderline frequencies, and your unique magic circuits react to it by heightening your reflexes."

"That's a lot to take in. But tell me this." Ervin furrowed his brows in earnest. "If all this is true, then if you reinforce my hearing range, wouldn't I be able to put in some serious hurt?"

"No." Archer frowned. "Once your senses are raised, your hearing range might naturally dilate, and increase the chances of you becoming even more sensitive; the only thing that's saving you from a chain reaction is the naturally low possibility of you actually hearing something beyond the natural range. If we tamper with that, then you'll constantly run the risk of successively heightening your perceptions, past the point of no return, until your senses explode and your sanity shatters."

Ervin fell silent as he pondered his options.

They will have to confront Berserker soon, and from the presence he felt earlier, Jacob Bathory has become a monster, and his servant's strength has surely grown in proportion. If he fails here, then Brigit would be isolated, and likely not stand much of a chance with Berserker in her way.

But if the reinforcement backfires? He would just as easily perish. If he cannot be with Brigit in the end, what was the purpose of him leaving his lifelong goal behind for her sake?

Ervin closed his eyes, and boiled everything to a single question. Just exactly what were the things that mattered to him?

"Archer."

The orange-haired swordsman stopped, and turned to his master silently. When Ervin was at a loss to continue, the servant, against all his direct mannerisms, averted his gaze for perhaps the first time. Archer absolutely could not allow himself to influence this boy in any way here and now. His decision has to be his own.

"..." Ervin paused again. Enough already. This was pathetic. The executrix was right about one thing; the sure way to defeat against Berserker is if he continues to delay.

He looked at Archer, and reminded himself of how battered the steady veteran was. It seemed as though it was fated that the servant would uncover his master's abilities right when he needed it the most. It was as though the Root itself was rearing its head, tempting Ervin with a miracle under the table.

He would be punished for signing this deal. To accept the Root's will on what he was meant to be, was akin to accepting his fate - the very thing that has ruined Elise's life, and that of his own past self. Such a heartless bargain could never be forgiven.

But that wasn't what mattered to him. His sole concern lay elsewhere.

Of his three days' time, only two remain.

Two days to save his new family. His only family now.

He wanted a life with her because he wanted to see her live a normal life. If he failed, even if he lived, there would be no future for him after two days' time.

If he won, he would witness her living peacefully within that time as well.

In two days, everything would be decided. Be it his strength or his life, the absolute minimum was only that he needed to last until then.

He fixed his wandering gaze, and breathed deep.

"You've got to do it, mate. There's no choice."

"You've made one just now." Archer's tone was quiet, but sharp and cutting. "Do you really understand?"

"I do." Ervin raised his verdant eyes and squarely met the gaze of his mentor. "Your od is running low, and I can't let you take it all on yourself. Plus, I've come this far to fight for Brigit's future. There's no future for me if she isn't alright."

"Master..."

Ervin closed his eyes, declaring that his mind was made. "And if it doesn't work out, I'll just end up with more things in common with her then, won't I?"

With his eyes closed, Ervin waited there for a while but felt nothing. Then he opened his eyes to find Archer already walking away down the street. Ervin frowned as he ran to catch up to him, visibly upset that Archer has ignored his request.

Then the whisper of the midnight breeze blew by, and sang dolefully in his ears. Without stopping to savour his alteration, he continued to forge ahead.

Jacob Bathory's befouled presence left a messy trail behind him, right along the path of Charing Cross Road leading down to the abbey.

"Traces of his presence still hang in the air." Ervin frowned and sniffed his nose; he could almost smell the bloody tinge in the residue, cast-off prana.

"It is as though his body has been charged to the brim." Archer noted. "His overflowing od is spilling behind him as he moves. He isn't concealing his tracks at all."

"So he's got but one tactic then." Ervin reasoned. "They simply try to outlast their opponents, with the master slowly draining the enemy while Berserker slowly powers up, until they run their prey to the ground."

"Don't be fooled by leechcraft's harmful appearance." Archer reminded his master. "It is just as effective in healing and recovery."

Their conversation was cut short as they entered Trafalgar Square. As they approached the massive stone column in the centre of the square, they locked sights with Berserker and her master, standing under the admiral's statue and haunting the empty place like a pair of ghouls.

They were waiting for them.

***Scene Break***

"Ervin, is it?"

Ervin could not read the other master's voice. But he knew that that Bathory's disarming gesture was his calm before the storm. "Jacob." Ervin nodded to his rival in acknowledgement, but kept himself from declaring war. Ervin held his tongue, hoping that silence would wear down Jacob's patience and make him reveal something useful.

"Ervin Cambrian." Jacob rolled the name delicately on his tongue. "You must die today."

Archer traced his twin weapons and took a firm step forward, placing himself slightly in front of his master. But Ervin turned, and gently pressed his hand down on Kanshou in a halting gesture.

"Give me the sword, Archer."

The orange-haired swordsman frowned, and stared at Ervin for a moment. When he gave in and obeyed, he did not so much as even nod, but only demurred with slightly downcast eyes before beginning a slow, careful projection of Saber's violet Nightmare, the runeblade that matched Ervin in size and weight uncannily well. Ervin took it in hand, gripped it firmly, and took a deep breath to refresh his circuits before meeting his fate head on.

But even then, perhaps he could coax Jacob into revealing just a bit more.

"I understand you perfectly, mate." Ervin lowered his blade slightly, enough to discourage a measure of aggression without appearing enticingly weak. "It's human nature to want the Grail. I, you, or any plain bloke would run over others for it without need of a real reason. I don't blame you at all."

"You..." Jacob Bathory's voice was a mournful mix of weary bitterness and misunderstood hurt. "Like the dying world you embody, you assume much, but know of little." He breathed deeply, and bleakly stared not at Ervin but through him, far away into the sooty late-night sky. "Even when driven to extinction, you cannot see matters beyond the petty struggles between man to man."

"If it's not your wish versus mine, what IS it then?" Ervin lowered his sword a little further.

"It's so much more than just my wish or yours." Jacob closed his eyes, perhaps recalling thoughts and visions from his mind. He might have left himself open there and then, but respectfully Ervin refrained from testing him, and instead lowered his sword to the ground completely.

Nightmare made a melodic contact with the pavement. Jacob's voice was suddenly quiet as he lost himself in his waking dream, but Ervin heard every word.

"Long, long time ago..."

***Scene Break***

_Long, long time ago, the River Nile cradled Egypt, an empire sweeping from the Red Sea northward into the Mediterranean. The kingdom has seen its ups and downs, but by her Eighteenth Dynasty, she has reached the peak of her power._

_That power was not divided evenly amongst its people. The city of Thebes was the heart of the kingdom, and the Amun priesthood the heart of Thebes. Members of the priesthood held the court and all of nobility in an invisible grip, stashing away as much as one-fifth of the nation's total wealth. Through their divinations, their high priests approved and disapproved new pharaohs at will, effectively gaining the final say in all of the nation's affairs. Such was the way of the kingdom was run then, and keeping the priesthood appeased but dormant was a necessary mark of any good ruler._

_Amenhotep the Magnificent was a case in point. He had been a brilliant pharaoh in his youth, playing off the high priests and the foreign tributaries against each other, while his secular officials ran the country like clockwork. For decades the nation continued to boom, and its people has seen not a single case of war._

_Buoyed and supported by a complacent society, the pharaoh's shy, timid daughter, princess Amarna, was able to live a sheltered life. Peacefully she grew from an infant to a young woman in her teens, safely behind the insular doors of the palace libraries. The only companionship she has ever needed was that of her brother, Thutmose, who would often lead her through wild and frightening escapades in the disused palace armouries, where they played soldier with chariot carts and spears, amongst other things. Life looked simple, and she was set for it. Bony Thutmose was going to be pharaoh one day; she would marry him, and nothing would ever change._

_But all goods things come to an end. In his old age, Amenhotep became gravely ill and impotent. The country's economy was mismanaged, and her crop yields suffered. The old man had enough sense left to focus the nation's income towards relief work, but the clergy were left in cold. Denied of their tributes and unable to sustain their extravagant habits, they began to press the pharaoh for reparations._

_"In time." The old man promised them. Surely they had to at least humour his plea for leniency; he was the pharaoh after all._

_But the priesthood did not have to take no for an answer. Despite being 'starved' of offerings, the high priests had more than enough stashed away to perform a few briberies. As all the palace honour guards were men of faith, anyone who did not rise to the bait of an ordained sum of rewards could be coerced by the threat that Great Amun-Ra might no longer bless them. In the end, rounding up every man in the royal family with their very own bodyguards proved almost trivial for the high priests of Amun._

_"The gods are angry at your unfaithfulness, your majesty." A priest pretentiously explained to the addled monarch. "They can no longer be appeased by any sum of mortal gold. You must offer up an appropriate article of yours as a fitting sacrifice."_

_"Enough!" Thutmose rose from his seat and punched the pretender squarely in the face. "Perhaps the priesthood should sacrifice one of its own! You are surely worthy, are you not?"_

_"Blasphemy! The Crown Prince has defied the gods!" The broken-nosed priest desperately crawled away on all fours as he wailed. "Those of you who are of faith, carry out Amun's wrath!"_

_"You would not dare!" Thutmose pointed his bare hand at the rabble. A hush fell over the rebel guards. This was the Crown Prince, after all._

_"You will all pay your betrayal with your heads." He spat at the armoured guards that stood before him, without realizing his huge mistake. Without further prompting, a number of guards swarmed forward and made a sieve of him, and proceeded to hold the old pharaoh at spear point. At this point every household maid has lost their nerves and ran screaming for their lives, knocking over expensive pottery as they fled. The old monarch pleaded desperately with the leading priest, but the words to whatever bargain they struck was drowned out in the chaos._

_Hidden in the back halls behind a thick curtain, Amarna stared in silence. She fixed her wide eyes at Thutmose, staring on and on, until she abruptly turned around and walked away without a sound._

_After news of the Crown Prince succumbing to disease finished circulating amongst the populace, the unrecorded incident was forgotten, and never spoken of again. In the aftermath, Amenhotep should have had no more sons to take on the title of the next prince, but somehow another son appeared out of nowhere, and the royal family seemed to once again have an heir. The priesthood was all too glad for this development, for the chance was ripe for a puppet government._

_The mild, soft-spoken boy did a fine job of governing, applying textbook techniques and formulae to urban development and agriculture to the letter. Keeping him under control was easy enough; so long as the palace guards were with the priesthood, and no weapons were allowed into the inner rooms, there was nothing that the illegitimate boy could possibly do._

_During the prince's fourth year as acting regent, the old pharaoh finally died. In the month leading up to the crowning ceremony, rumours began circulating in the palace. Guards spoke of ghosts that would appear at whim, mumbles words, and then disappear. Some even went as far as to claim that the ghosts only spoke a single intelligible word._

**_"Why?"_**

_Things went from bad to worse when the priests were told that palace guards were abandoning their posts. Coupled with the ghost stories, the priesthood became concerned for the safety of their hard-won puppet. They decided then that the crowning ceremony could wait no longer._

_They found a dishevelled maid all alone in the palace, with greasy, tangled hair covering her face down to the painted lips. The first priests that tried to question her for the prince's whereabouts had theirs necks snapped in seconds. Their shocked and outraged temple guards soon followed. In their terror, not one armed escort could throw their spears straight. The would-be procession screamed, wept, and pleaded for mercy, as the unarmed creature tore through them with her bare hands._

_One last survivor tried to craw away on all fours, much like he did when Thutmose struck him down. When a delicate hand ran down his hung-down face, he thought that a goddess has come to wake him from his nightmare._

_He turned just in time to see the hot wind sweep aside her sooty, crusted hair, revealing a pair of once-delicate, deadpan bloodshot eyes._

_"C-crown Prince?"_

_S__he grinned emptily and added his head to the mountain of skulls._

_Following the crowning ceremony, the new pharaoh left the old capital behind, abolished the priesthood, and began an eccentric reign marked by brutal reforms. No one knew why she spent her entire life pursuing a single, obscure god, while rejecting all others. No one understood that she NEEDED only one god, one that might answer for her fate._

_But the masses were weak, and in time flocked back to the familiar ways that held themselves down. In the end, betrayed, forgotten, and written out of history, amidst a plague that devastated her city and wiped out her household, the lonely pharaoh died in despair, realizing finally that so long as gods remained immutable and inhuman, it was impossible for them to answer for anything at all._

***Scene Break***

"But her wish is in fact achievable, present day, present time." Jacob gave an unsteady laugh. "There's a human god in the making, Cambrian, and YOUR sacrifice is the final reagent!"

Ervin tensed, and readied every muscle in his body. He has heard all that he needed. Jacob Bathory had a goal; a motivation that Ervin could understand. There were both lost souls who have turned their back on a great many things, and too far gone to have any hope of returning to a normal life.

But that would not weaken his resolve. Even against someone you could relate to, if your ends are irreconcilable with his, then there is no reason to lower your sword.

He heard a slight shuffle from behind him. "Archer." He requested without turning around. "Please, stay out of this, and conserve your strength."

Archer said nothing, but nor did he make another move. Was he displeased at being left behind? Or perhaps seized by an strangely haunting sense of unease?

Without warning, Berserker's charging footsteps tapped against the pavement like a mix between falling bullets and rolling rain. Ervin drew his gun and fired. He tried to slow her advance, but it was no good. The aiming wasted time, and there was no room left now to dodge.

Nightmare growled a low note as he swept the flat side of his blade to bat her fists aside, and felt his shoulders and elbows buckling under the force of her hands. Damn it. Ervin gritted his throat in a grinding grunt. Their difference in brute strength was too great.

The tremors of clashing steel were helping him, but they were slow to build up. He was not fast enough to dodge, or make evasive counterattacks. There was only one way, then, for him to stand a chance.

He planted his feet firmly on the ground. Motor control, prana, concentration - what he did not have enough of for the whole of his body, he focused them above the waist. He would have to make a gambit, and-!

The bladed gauntlets came back around no later than he was ready. Steel and steel made a crystal clear ring with a shower of sparks, as Berserker used the impact to propel herself backwards slightly, so that her next attack might come in greater strength.

"Ha-" Ervin tried to keep the sound down, not wanting Archer to hear him gasping for air. The tone of the clash was no good, its frequency too ordinary to be of consequence. He would have to repeat the same move again.

He was more mentally prepared for the next strike, but his limbs were giving way. It had been a screeching noise this time, but still well within hearing range. Ervin had the hang of it now - right angle blunting attacks had the best chance to create low notes, while sharp, abrasive glances could be used to hit it high. He swallowed bloody saliva to rinse his drying throat, and stood his ground silently. There has not been too much movement, but a great deal of his muscles must have been ripped, for he found it harder now to lift his sword and command his arms to move.

Hold it together, he told his own body. Just one more exchange. One more chance. As soon as her hand comes-

He slashed her fist with an upper cut, slicing her gauntlet blades with the sharp edge of his sword. The overwhelming sound was a sharp grinding, still a common noise of clashing steel. It took out all that Ervin had; for a fraction of a second, his arms began to drop like stone.

A shrill overtone drilled inside his skull, ravaging his eardrums with a range of dull and sharp pains. The burning immediately spread to his eyes, as the rippling pulse proceeded to circulate from his chest down into his limbs, strengthening his control over his joints. Just as an ordinary noise sends a sleeping man into waking, the piercing sound sent Ervin from being merely wide awake upwards into something more.

His first dodge seemed more of a twitch than a reaction; rather than pivoting his body subtly, he jumped completely out of harm's way. But Berserker did not relent, and pounced on him again. There was method in her madness, constantly trying to orient their face-offs across the street rather than running along it, so that Ervin could not rely fully on stepping back at every exchange. Ervin soon became backed up against a building, and was forced to sidestep and pivot. The moment he exposed his flank, Berserker struck at him with full force.

Ervin's posture did not permit him to dodge the strike. He had barely enough time to bring Nightmare to bear, digging it into the ground beside him, so that its flat side might act as a shield. He stance was so inadequate in a pinch, that Berserker's fists dislodged Nightmare from its entrenchment, slammed it against his body, and sent him flying back before crashing into the pavement.

Nightmare grinded against the cement, tearing chunks loose as it fell with its wielder. Murmurs of displeasure emanated from the sword's glowing runes, firing off Ervin's auditory nerves with a bleeding pain. He rolled to the side as a steel boot came crashing down on him, making a thrust of his sword to cover himself as he sat back up and proceeded to stand. As Berserker swatted his sword aside, the only thing that kept Ervin from falling back down again was the fact that he didn't commit his full momentum on the attack, so he was not knocked aside along with his weapon.

"Ha-ha-" He snuck in a handful of gulping breaths in the brief lull. He realized something then. There was no way a half-arsed attack would even dent the mad servant. But what was he to do? Should he continue his evasion, and wait for a single opportunity to drop all his defences for a full-out strike?

No. That would not do. He recalled Archer's lessons. A tactic that sacrifices defence for attack only works against enemies of roughly equal ability. But here, the difference in their power was so great, that should Berserker spare just the tiniest effort into counterattacking while on defence, Ervin would have no answer in turn.

It was near dawn, and the sun was slowly rising. It was already early morning when they engaged, so at first the sunrise did not cause Ervin any alarm. But then he understood that Berserker might very well be using the natural sunrise as a cover for her strongest move. To compound things, he felt the residue prana around him gravitate towards Jacob's direction, a sign that Jacob was trying to slowly leech him dry.

Ervin only saw one possibility now. When Berserker's next attack came, stronger and faster than before, he did not evade. He stood his ground instead, guarding himself with Nightmare, and braced for impact.

Though the intent of his very first exchanges was to rack up enough speed to dodge Berserker's attacks altogether, he had to reverse his strategy now. He had to brave her strikes, power-up with even more weapon clashes, so that he might be able to gain the strength to damage her-

Easier said then done. Ervin heard a crack somewhere inside him as the weapons crossed; Nightmare was a hard weapon, but now it only served to transfer the full weight of its received attacks right into Ervin's body. The runeblade was good at negating the enemy's cutting force, but the blunting impact that it was letting through threatened to buckle Ervin's bones at every turn.

Shaking off the burning feeling inside his ears, he gritted his teeth, and persisted. The more it became clear that he could not defend forever, the more he must absorb the hits now, to raise his attack. Another hit stuck his weapon. Because he was not trying to dodge at all, he could focus better on his parries.

His ramping strength was offsetting the wear and tear in his muscles, but it did nothing to alleviate his sense of pain. If anything, it became more pronounced, making him agonizingly alert. His mind became more focused on the battle, for the terrible feeling in every part of his body drowned out his awareness of all the irrelevant things around him.

Only the weapon itself was keeping the sensation bearable. The indescribable sound coming from Nightmare has become akin to a smooth, buzzing hum that seemed to almost cauterize his mangled circuits. The sword was finally fighting in the method that it was accustomed to. Unlike Archer's style of suppress-and-manoeuvre, Ervin has subconsciously slid into Saber's tactic of defend-and-counter. Each time he was hit, he gathered more potential to respond in kind. The row of runes running along the blade charged steadily, gorging on every act of defence for an eventual attack.

Berserker too was slowly getting stronger by the second. At one slightest lull, she pulled back, switched to an assault stance and began to channel prana into her gauntlets. Should she manage to enchant her attacks, she could probably overload Ervin's circuits with a well-prepared strike.

But for Ervin, her window of preparation was his best chance.

Ervin straightened his body, and let raw mana wash over his overheated circuits with a fast, deep breath. As he blitzed forward, residue prana from the blade's full set of charged runes flushed into the palm of his hand, radiating into an aura of tyrian purple as he raised his arms to one side, high above his head, and swung-!

Berserker dropped her charge-up to shield herself from the attack. As the blade cut down with a visceral swoosh, she struck the offending weapon with a half-parry, clashing with it briefly without standing her ground. She thus managed to bleed out a bit of Ervin's momentum without taking any meaningful amounts of damage.

But it has distorted her stance then. Even as her body was still retracting from her backwards jump, Ervin closed again. His was a tight chain of pre-planned moves, that allowed no thinking or pause once it has begun. Nightmare crashed down in the exact same angle as before. So long as there was no breathing space, predictability didn't matter. An identical move in quick succession could only prompt the exact same response from the opposing automaton - except her previous landing has given her body less time to react than before.

Her jump wasn't as far this time. It was even easier to close in, and even harder for her to react.

Third hit. She jumped away again.

Fourth hit. Now she could take but a single step back.

Fifth hit. She had to receive the blow while still squatting down. The attack has staggered her, just as Ervin was left with his last active rune.

She pushed at the ground with her hands, and threw herself back with her arms. She was surprisingly strong, and while the move briefly ruined her stance, it would give her the distance to bleed out Ervin's last melee attack.

But Ervin did not chase her.

"-Nightmare-..."

-He raised his sword just as as before, but now instead of hoarding the sword's discharging prana within his own circuits, he let magecraft come into play, and let loose every bit of the runic discharge he has gathered thus far-

"-Ten-Strikes!"

From the height of the sword's raised tip down to the pulverised cement at his feet, six blade-sharp waves of chaotic violet slammed into a dishevelled Berserker in quick succession.

Sixth hit. Seventh hit. Eighth hit. Ninth hit. Tenth hit.

Jacob Bathory's shrill yell burst out in the empty dawn-lit streets as the hit went to eleven.

"BERSERKER! TELEPORT ASSAULT!"

Both of Berserker's arms ended in bloody stumps as she reappeared right in front of a panting Ervin. In an efficient combination of preservation and offence, Jacob's command seal has saved her life, but ruthlessly re-committed her broken body back into the fight in an instant. Ervin took a flying kick right below his heart, and the only thing that saved him from the bladed heel was the pistol in his pocket that gave way and snapped in two. He was sent sprawling metres away, and only through his enhanced reflexes was he able to balance himself in midair using his sword, and save himself from deadly concussion.

The day was now as bright as morning. Under the rays of a cursed sun, its mindless champion regenerated her hands as her master's od funnelled into her lethal body. The blood mage barely survived an ambush there and then, half-dodging a pair of twin swords that tore chunks of flesh off his back before his sanguine magecraft mended his ugly wounds.

Rolling a spell delicately off his tongue even as he savoured his injury and its mending thereof, Jacob linked his own od with that of Berserker's to form a single reserve of lifeblood. With an euphoric grin on his face, he turned to face his assailant.

***Scene Break***

_"Master!"_

_I called out to Ervin as he was sent crashing into the ground. I have put a lid on the sum of my doubts from this entire night up until now, and I'd like to think that I've done my utmost to be level-headed and logical with my Mind's Eye._

_Except I know damned well that I haven't. I've been possessed by an irrational urge to respect my master's own wish. I will not dwell on why that is, not now. Much more important was to assess the situation and act before it is too late._

_There was only one way to remedy the mistake of having obeyed my master beforehand - and that was to make the further mistake of disobeying my master now._

_"Sorry, Ervin." I declared under my breath as I dematerialized to prepare my attack. "I cannot obey your order."_

_A magi's enhanced hearing should have picked up my muttering right away. In Ervin's case, he would surely have reprimanded me and insisted that I stay put; but as he rose to his feet and engaged with the regenerated Berserker in a fight for his life, he did no such thing._

_DAMN._

_Just as I feared. Ervin couldn't hear a thing I've said. Before I dematerialized and rushed for Berserker's master, I stole a sideways glance at my own. Ervin has just finished a short chain of attacks against Berserker's weapon, instead of her body. On some of his stronger swings, Nightmare would even briefly detach from his hands altogether as he used two free hands to make side attacks or to balance himself, before catching the sword again. But despite his incredible agility, it only meant..._

_I couldn't wait anymore. If Ervin got any faster, he would die._

_I re-emerged behind Bathory, who was trying to recast his prana drain ritual on an Ervin who was constantly moving in and out of his focus. I cursed the Root for my E-level luck there and then, when I made my strike the instant he suddenly decided to run ahead. I got a piece of him still; a deadly graze that would easily have killed an average master. But to his credit, he was fast enough to link his od with that of his servant even as he was dying, and recover as the remaining portion of my attack went wide._

_With his face twisted into an insane grin, he let a vast reserve of od surface in his body. Its only possible source was the abnormal sun that has risen to the middle of the sky in early morning. Likely through a curse-type magic, Berserker was feeding energy off of the false star, and Bathory was leeching off Berserker in turn._

_He didn't stop there. He turned his attention to me, and began to leech what precious little od I had left as well. I threw Kanshou and Byakuya at him, but the twin swords became stuck in his criss-cross wound, failing to score deep as his flesh continued to toughen. At this rate, Berserker would outlast Ervin as he progressively breaks himself, while I would have not enough time to cut this leech down before all was lost. But even as defeat loomed right over us, I did my best to calmly explore all the options that we had left._

_The summoned sun above was their source of power. That made it both their strength and their weakness. As such there was still one thing left that I could do._

_Three hundred prana wasn't good for much, but in terms of raw od, there was plenty for me to convert - for a price. There was a disconnect between the magical circuits of my left arm and the rest of my body, denying its full use to the unworthy. But to violate that seal has always been a choice that I was free to make. The caveat was that within any instance of my existence, once I open that lid, there was likely no going back._

_To match the superior power of true heroes during my tenures as a servant over many timelines, I've gradually enhanced my single strongest attack time and time again until it was barely recognizable from what it first was. I had hoped to save this until some sort of finale, but as Root would have it, this would be it. _

**_"Toei, kaishi."_**_ I began the process with a leaden-toned incantation._

_In my mind, I began tracing the base weapon for my attack. An enormous, jagged cleaver greater than the longest of swords. Made firstly from ordinary carved stone, its status as a noble phantasm of immense power came solely from the legendary deeds of its demigod wielder, mighty Heracles of Ancient Greece. Static surged through my circuits as I began projecting the massive sword, and ever-so-subtly, a creeping discomfort began to deaden my left shoulder. But it was of no consequence, as it did not interfere with my motor control. The projection took no more than a second as I passed the ponderous blade into my right hand._

_Though I have not become a hero to deserve my grafted limb, I have become more than enough of a magus to match it. I dug deeper into its forbidden recesses as I prepared yet another projection. I was far from done._

_I would take advantage of my servant class to truly combine two noble phantasms, beyond the sense of simply wielding a different sword in each hand._

_I began tracing a legendary bow, one different from what I habitually used. One of the few ancient weapons of its type from antiquity that could adequately launch noble phantasms, it was one that I seldom used due to its marginally inferior durability and its steep prana cost. But this was the precise weapon I needed, here and now._

_I began with the concept of a fabled bow that has taken down nine stars. I envisioned the structure of its long, slender body of hollowed ivory, carved from the shed horns of legendary kirin, with the enchanted tendons of wild oxen spun as the bowstring. I traced the weapon's history - that of the hand-crafted, enchanted personal weapon of an archer-king from Ancient China who has protected the land from drought by shooting down nine of the ten suns that lived in the sky. By projecting the whole of the noble phantasm's concept, structure, composition, production, and history, I coalesced the weapon in my grafted left hand, complete with the curse within that doomed all divine summons with its fired arrows._

_I loaded the stone sword, Nine Lives, onto the Sun-Shooting Bow. As the alternative form of the sword was the very volley of arrows Heracles used to simultaneously slay all the heads of a hydra, it naturally reformed into a volley of arrows upon being placed against the bowstring. Being a spirit that was more than a quiver short of a demigod, I could but create nine arrows this way, but it would be enough._

**_"Trigger, off."_**_ I continued to focus my prana, reinforcing the arrows until their physical form shattered, unable to contain the overload of energy. For good measure, I began reinforcing the bow as well, so that it too would disintegrate the moment the arrows left, and release the full strength of its curse through its shafts._

_Bathory watched on and gaped, perhaps realizing what I meant to do. Strong as he was, his true fatal flaw became apparent. With his servant tied down, he had absolutely no means to kill me fast enough to stop my attack._

_"Shooting...nine...stars..." I closed my eyes momentarily, and continued to focus the foreign od in my arm into ignited prana._

_Berserker's master threw the full weight of his leechcraft at me, even with my twin swords still lodged in his sides. But tried as he did, he could not stop arrows that have already left their bow._

**_"NINE LIVES BLADE WORKS."_**

_Raw energy from the broken phantasms stripped themselves of their shattered physical forms and shot forward in beams of cold, blue-white light. The arrows took off, taking the disembodied curse from the fading bow upon themselves. As they pierced the enormous orb of radiating mana floating high in the air, the false sun imploded upon itself, shrivelling into a floating crater of shadow, and was then no more._

_Sapped of the source of energy that supplied him with vitality indefinitely, Jacob immediately succumbed to his wounds, falling on his knees and coughing blood. With his last breath, he issued one last order to his servant._

_"Live...on..."_

_The last command seal on his hand flashed. I would have decapitated him there and then, but I was slowed from fighting the steel contagion in my grafted arm that began to diffuse into the rest of my body. With my innate magic circuits that could now easily match most living magi, I had a good chance of keeping a light exertion under control. But the cost was that I ended up allowing Bathory to issue yet another order. Given his insanity, that could have been anything from fatal to absurd._

_But as Berserker disappeared from Ervin's reach and reappeared at the side of her dying master, I reasoned that the command he made wasn't so bad for us. Any Berserker's independent action would likely be near zero, so she would fade once Bathory dies._

_As she picked up the broken form of her master, her mad enhancement faded away. Bathory gurgled painfully as he palmed her cheeks, his voice nothing more than a hoarse growl._

_"Find...your God..."_

_"I found you, master." She whispered in his ear, and bit her lips into a bittersweet expression._

_She turned around to find Ervin staggering towards her, with an unreadable look in his wide eyes that made him look as though he was intoxicated. As things were, I cared not whether Ervin was there to finish the job. The only question that sat squarely on my mind now was this; will this boy, Ervin Cambrian, turn out okay in the end?_

_"Berserker...no..." Ervin corrected himself as he addressed her. "Pharaoh Amarna, is it?"_

_She stared at him coldly, without saying a word._

_"I...have deprived you of your wish. I can't be forgiven for that, but I apologize all the same."_

_As Berserker began to disappear, her master's body fell through her translucent body and landed on the broken pavement with a thud. She knelt beside him in a morbid vigil, but refused to let on any display of mourning for us to see. She no longer looked at Ervin at all, but at length spoke her parting words._

_"Fate awaits you at the Abbey. If you want your apology to apply at all, you'd better confront it soon."_

_"Where is the relic?" I cut in. She was fading, and this was our last chance to get a clue from her. But she only turned and looked at me with a grim smile as her image disappeared._

_"You don't know what they are, do you?" As soon as the faint, subtly spiteful words reached my ears, it was born off by the wind, and dissolved into nothing._

_I gritted my teeth, but there was nothing I could do._

_I turned to Ervin; there was something I needed to know. I mouthed the words 'are you all right, Ervin,' complete with facial expressions, but made no sound._

_"I'm all right thanks to you, mate." He looked at me, and put on a brave, casual grin._

_I returned the smile, not for the sake of his ironic compliment, but because I resonated with his personal struggle more than he could know. Ervin Cambrian was meant to be my master, and I his servant._

_"Where to now, master?" It might have sounded rhetorical, but it was part of my whole paradigm of letting him make his own choices._

_"Westminster."_

_Without a word I fell in line behind him, and headed southwards. I will be his shield until the very end._

********************************************************************************Chapter End**********************************

*************************************************************************Servant Stat Unlocked: Archer***************************

Class: Archer

Master: Ervin Cambrian

True Name: Emiya Shirou

Sex: Male

Height/Weight: 187cm, 78kg

Alignment: Neutral

***Parameters:***

Strength: D

Magical Energy: B

Endurance: C

Luck: E

Agility: C

Noble Phantasm: B

***Class Abilities:***

Independent Action: B+: allows the servant to persist in the world even after becoming detached from the master. A rank of B normally implies being able to last this way for up to two days, although a determined Emiya can stretch this limit up to three. In addition, this allows the servant to fight on for a period of time even after severe damage to his spiritual core.

***Skills:***

Mind's Eye: B: allows for calm analysis of any combat situation, and make rational decisions despite imminent threats or distractions. This greatly increases his chances of making a comeback when seemingly outmatched.

Magic: B: as a skill, a Magic rank of B implies a formidable magus, with an unparalleled level of mastery over at least one branch of magecraft.

Fallen Hero: C: indicates a hero that has strayed from his path during his lifetime. The servant is barred from his full potential, but has (been forced to) become more adept at his more basic abilities.

***Noble Phantasms:***

Traced Projection: allows Archer to create replicas of any weapon he sees, with swords being particularly easy for him to replicate. Most weapons are projected at one rank below that of the original, but Archer compensates for this by overcharging his replicas, destroying them in the process for additional effect.

Rank: E – B+

Type: Varies

Range: 1 – 300

Target: Varies

Combined Phantasm: Archer has mastered his own art to the point where he can project legendary bows in combination with his projected swords. When a sword is fired from the bow, it retains its own magical properties while taking on any additional enchantments of the bow it was launched from. Both the bow and the sword can be overcharged, increasing their attack power many fold.

Rank: C – A+

Type: Varies

Range: 5 – 400

Target: Varies

Unlimited Blade Works: by tapping into the dormant magical circuits buried in his left arm, Archer theoretically has the potential to launch a reality marble within which he can create weapons freely at will. However, so long as Emiya Shirou cannot cast off his own 'fallen' status, he does not have the heroic presence to command such a skill.

Rank: E – A++

Type: Varies

Range: Varies

Target: Varies


	18. Fate: Annales Cambriae

Author's Note: there has been a minor cleanup of previous chapters, mostly involving the consistency of some characters' demeanors. Also per reader request, stats on OC servants have been posted at the end of certain chapters where they wouldn't spoil the story.

PS: Same as in chapter 10, I did away with the italics here. Otherwise it's too long and hurts the eyes. Basically there is only one scene-break in this chapter and it's mostly dialogue. First scene is in third person, second scene is in first person.

***Story Begins Here***

The twisted aura surrounding the derelict abbey was unlike the common presences that would reek of blood, hate, or terror. Rather it was a thick, feverish mist of residue mana that was breathed in and out with every breath of air. The air itself was a moist, suppressing kind of hot that made Ervin feel sick.

He felt a familiar hum in his ears, and turned back to Archer. His sound was mixed and garbled with a ton of background noise, but Ervin's ears could still hear the whisper-like residues of the servant's words with ease, even if he was to speak in the quietest of volumes.

"There is fighting in the abbey." Archer remarked with certainty.

Ervin too has felt turbulent eddies of magecraft. This had to be another master, one more that he'll have to defeat. It didn't matter whether Berserker pointed him here into a trap, because she has sent him to a place he needed to be.

He arrived just in time to see a bloody, broken figure collapse at the gate, as a dozen chains began to swarm a sword-swinging, outlandishly dressed woman who stood her ground where her ally fell. Before he could assess the scene, Ervin's first instinct of helping a defenceless lady got the better of him.

The bundle of floating chains was hard to deal with from the front, where they opened up into a dangerous maw. But from the side, they could all be cut at the waist. Without hesitation, Ervin rushed into the fray and swung his sword. The metallic tendrils faded away upon being cut, disappearing before their limp forms touched the ground.

Then he finally got in a good look at just who the poor fallen chap was.

"Nozumu!" Ervin was in shock. Aside from the question of what was he doing here, the poor bastard was missing an eye. As Ervin's mind raced through what he knew of him in an attempt to piece together what's happened, an unpleasant possibility reared its head. Just then, Ervin made out the words to Archer's tense warning even as the orange-haired veteran rushed to his side protectively, and that only confirmed his fear.

"Beware, Ervin. This is Assassin."

And Nozumu no doubt was her master. Ervin stopped himself from cringing; his course was set to win the Grail for Brigit, and he did not have time to second-guess himself. If he was willing to stand even against Elise, then Nozumu cannot count as an exception.

Before Ervin could muster the ruthlessness to order Archer to finish them off, the magus who controlled the chains emerged from the chapel. He coolly regarded everyone before him, before resting his eyes on Ervin. Assassin has meanwhile taken advantage of the fact that she was no longer in the spotlight, and lifted her master with both arms and began to carry him away. Ervin was about to order Archer to put a stop to them when the stranger magus spoke, turning the attention of both master and servant back his way.

"Cambrian." The stranger's voice was completely collected. "I assume you've defeated Berserker?"

"Yeah, that's right." Ervin's short response was heavy. Depriving others of their wishes and lives weighed on him, and his was an effort to own up to what he's done.

"Berserker." Assassin's detective-minded curiosity briefly stopped her in her tracks. "So Berserker's master was your pawn, Andrew Fortwright."

"There is a difference between an operative and a pawn, and calling Bathory the latter would not do him justice." The magus calmly criticized Assassin's choice of words, as if he had no awareness of all the swords that were trained on him. "In many ways, Jacob Bathory was just as much the mastermind as I was, only that he chose to conduct himself by living in action..."

Assassin stopped listening, and was poised to move away with a burst of speed.

"Archer! Cut them off!" As soon as Ervin gave the order, Archer phased out and reappeared in Assassin's path. Ervin hesitated when he noticed a hint of reluctance on his servant's face, and feared for a second that Assassin might take advantage of them. But instead Assassin turned around, and looked directly into Ervin's eyes.

"Brigit's lying in pieces inside the Abbey. Are you going to come after us and leave her be?"

Ervin's blood froze. He turned to Andrew Fortwright, and questioned him silently with wide eyes. The magus coldly made a "hmph," a sound between a musing and a chuckle, as he vacated the doorway and slowly retreated inside. Ervin dashed in after him, forcing Archer to follow suit as well, lest there be traps waiting within.

Assassin seized her chance then, and made off with her master into the distance, but to Ervin now that was but a footnote.

_***Scene Break***_

So be it, the Root didn't really trust me with a Counter Guardian's duty. I always knew that.

But to send over ANOTHER one while I'm still here? That's a tad offensive. It was not like the Root to place two Counter Guardians on active duty in a single Grail War, no matter how dire the circumstance. Perhaps it was possible that I was the only actual guardian, while it just happened that some other forces besides the Root caused Ryougi to appear, here and now?

But enough of that; more pressing matters called. As Ervin rushed to the disarmed and dislegged Brigit who has passed out on the floor, I took the time to study the opposing magus and his surroundings. A corridor of pillars between the sacred stands outlined the dimly lit hallway that led to the open stairs. Fortwright stood atop it on the upper deck of the chapel, illuminated by the dark colours of the stained glass above him. Before the magus could speak, Ervin beat him to the first word.

"Andrew Fortwright." My master's tone was one of cold hostility. "It seems like we're going to be enemies."

Andrew Fortwright. The name sounded familiar. But I don't recall him from any of my previous Grail Wars.

"With good reason." Even though Fortwright's voice was cold, his reply to Ervin was ripe with anticipation. "The fruition of my wish requires your death, and it is natural that you seek to escape it."

I rushed the magus there and then; his goal clearly was to destroy Ervin, and I could not give him the chance to make the attempt. But as I neared him, a swirling, black-and purple portal appeared directly in my path, spewing fourth sinister-looking chains that threatened to catch me in a deadly pin. I was forced to veer away and briefly dematerialize to evade capture.

What caught my attention were the very chains themselves; the way they would emerge ubiquitously, weave back and fourth, and pursue their targets was a testament to Fortwright's power. But I have never seen anything like it; I couldn't ascertain just what kind of magecraft this is. Coercion and binding? Perhaps, but I couldn't be sure.

Andrew Fortwright.

I evaded another set of winding chains. Where did I hear this name?

My master stayed at Brigit's side. The small girl remained in a coma, but the stumps of her limbs have already closed off their gushing wounds. Still I had to make sure that Fortwright was fully occupied, so that he could not use his magecraft against them. I traced Kanshou and Byakuya repeatedly, throwing them in unpredictable curves.

The chaotic portals that spawned masses of grappling chains retreated themselves close to Fortwright's side to defend him. Just then, I saw a chance to finish him altogether.

Trace on.

"-Guh-" I winced slightly as a prana spark jumped between a pair of mismatched magical circuits in my left shoulder. Other than the reserves locked away in my left arm, my od has already hit rock bottom. Putting the grafted limb to work would damage my body further, but I wasn't one to hesitate on that matter now.

I materialized my bow and readied a new weapon in my other hand. Predictably as Fortwright's chains swatted away my thrown swords, they left a brief gap for my real attack-!

"Caladbolg!"

After Caladbolg exploded on impact, I caught sight of Fortwright's shadow, still standing amidst the clearing smoke. I dematerialized immediately and rushed him. Regardless of how he managed to evade my attack, his awareness should be decreased somewhat after the explosion, and that made yet another opening.

I was briefly concerned that disappearing from view might drive the magus to target my master instead, but I quickly saw that it was the least of my worries. The chains continued to shoot towards my general location even when I am dispersed, and prudently I took a sharp turn away from my foe, missing him by just a metre.

Still, I gained something from the exchange. Firstly I deduced that somehow, his chains had the ability to grip immaterial things, such as the very presence I gave off. This explained how he managed to survive my attack by actually arresting a portion of Caladbolg's raw energy. Furthermore, I noted that he was far from unharmed, bleeding in several places from wounds inflicted by the part of my attack that he couldn't block. That meant his strength wasn't quite at a servant's level. Given enough time, he was decidedly beatable.

But the most important thing I've gleaned from briefly brushing by him was that he had no command seals on his hands.

"Andrew Fortwright." I called out to him in my most declarative tone, hoping to goad him into revealing his intentions. "What can you hope to accomplish in a Grail War without being a master?"

"What IS the Grail?" Fortwright's expression became doubly serious as he looked at me in the eyes. "Can you answer that, Archer?"

"The Grail War is a ritual devised by the Einzberns in an attempt to recover the Third Magic." I gave him a textbook answer. "The ritual collects the souls of servants, and uses their energy to connect with the Root."

"You haven't done your research properly. Your Einzberns only created a single Grail, one of the many hundreds that have been made to date." Fortwright's reply was particularly cutting, as though he took pleasure in my apparent ignorance. But I let him speak; what he said was technically correct, and he might be on his way to revealing something I didn't already know.

"The concept of Grail Wars existed since the dawn of Common Era, long before your Einzberns obtained and lost their Third Magic. Any artefact of sufficient power can be made into a Grail, and serve as the key to the Root. The sacrifices required to activate that Grail may vary, but anyone who makes the right sacrifices has a chance to reach the Root, and be rewarded with some form of a granted wish."

To have a Grail activated via sacrifice: that was a paradigm that sounded familiar. Where have I heard of this before?

"The Einzberns' only true legacy to the Grail Wars is their invention of the Servant System. Many guardians of other Grails adopted it for allowing modern magi to witness ancient magic, which would often awaken latent talents amongst would-be mediocrities. Better yet, a master who couldn't guess what sacrifices to make could always resort to killing other servants, which simplified things a great deal."

Sacrifices. The word finally rang the bell. A few weeks ago, Ervin and I read some books on magecraft at a library; Andrew Fortwright was the author to a pair of books that talked about how to make sacrifices to the Root by erasing the legends of heroes.

I've originally written off his theory as nothing more than that of a reasonably knowledgeable outsider. But if Bathory, who's proven to be in league with Fortwright, names my master as a 'sacrifice,' then this magus standing against me now is far too dangerous to be ignored.

"So you're a magus whose specialty is 'sacrifice.'" I challenged him as I traced another weapon in my mind. "Too bad you won't have the chance to put your Grail theory to test."

Portals appeared around Fortwright again; doubtlessly ready to spawn a tight grid to block my next attack. But I've just the thing for him.

I projected Hrunting and fired it from my bow. Since his summoned chains can arrest matter and energy alike, projectiles that exploded on impact weren't as efficient as a homing missile that was flexible enough to change course mid-flight. He might still block it with magic, but unless he surrounds himself completely with a bubble of chains, and sabotage his own vision in the process, I didn't think he'd have a way to react to the noble phantasm when it changes course again and again.

So I guided the missile to first pass by him, and then come around against his back where he'd be slower in seeing it. Having already cast his chain net in front of him, he opened a single large portal behind his back, so that it stood in the way of Hrunting's flight path. It seemed like he would divert some chains behind him through his new portal, so I made the missile veer around again, this time striking from his side.

But he opened another large portal a dozen paces away. As Hrunting closed in on him, he stepped backwards, through the near portal and out the farther. Hrunting made a sharp turn to pursue him through the portals, but Fortwright dismissed both gates just as the missile entered, swallowing the weapon inside completely.

I gritted my teeth as I felt the metallic numbness creep yet another centimetre into my shoulder. My very body was my resource now, and my need to ration it for the fights ahead limited how aggressive I could afford to be against this one enemy. As I circled him to keep his attention off my master, who has retreated to a spot far from Fortwright but well within my vision, the dark magus made an equally declarative reply to my previous verbal threat.

"You are one War too late to stop the testing phase, Archer."

Damn it, so that meant he was a master from the last war, and he built his theory from real experiences.

What REALLY bothered me though was something else. This guy was turning out to resemble an old nemesis of mine more and more with each passing line and gesture. I don't need to go into fine details of how much a character like this is liable to absolutely screw everything up. The dying executrix warned us that this entire timeline was in danger, and the involvement of this enemy just made that doubly believable.

"While you are still left with several servants to eliminate, I've already obtained all the relics that I need. As you can see, the Einzbern method isn't always the fastest."

"Every one of your friends goes on about some kind of relic." I scoffed as I closed in. "What do you do, collect skulls from robbed graves?"

Fortwright met my charge with a well-spread matrix of single chains. I was fast enough to parry a few before a chain arrested Kanshou and threatened to tie up my arm. I abandoned that sword, and threw the other at the magus as I disengaged from the deathtrap. This was getting frustrating. I could either brute force him with a number of strong projections at the cost of my own body, or wait for Brigit to recover and engage him three-on-one. But since Saber has presumably been killed, we really needed to conserve our forces. And so, the first choice wasn't really an option.

"Your dullness is profound, Archer. Let me spoon-feed you the puzzle."

I gave a cold sneer, but welcomed the chance to stall for time.

"You know that a Grail is a container that serves as a path to the Root. But the path provided by the container is of course tinted by the container's nature. To change the Root's influence on the world, you have to change the tint on that path. And to affect the tint, you obviously have to target the container."

"Don't say you've found the container." I challenged him again. "The whole town would be up in flames if you had that on your hand."

"Ah, but it's no good to just have the container, Archer. What I also have is a replacement for it. If you sacrifice the very container itself to the Root, it will be a one-time, final activation of this Grail. In that moment, as the Grail manifests its full form with a non-existing container, there will be a brief window to replace that container with a new one. Imagine what would happen if the new container was a fully sentient deity? How easily will it become for him to rewrite reality?"

"You're insane." I narrowed my eyes and shook my head slightly.

"Do you still not understand, Archer?" His cool voice was starting to betray a manic, twisted excitement that clearly ran in his veins. "The general meaning of a Grail is a relic that has witnessed a 'mediator' between the Root and the world. In other words, a relic can be dubbed a Grail if and only if it reminds mankind of their past close-encounters with the Root. You may also think of Grails as the only openings between the Root and the material world. No cause and effect, nor fate nor substance, can pass to us from the Root, except through various Grails."

"I understand perfectly. You're trying to create a twisted living god that could annihilate everything."

"And you intone that in the accusative? How is this god different from your Lizleihi Justicar von Einzbern? Listen, Archer. Grails will always exist whether you like it or not. The container to any Grail always acts as a god, whether you like it or not. The difference is whether that god is immutable, or human. An immutable god does not answer to prayers, because it is not human, and cannot hear, understand, or listen as humans do. A human god will respond to sacrifices, and will hear prayers, because it has an ego. In a common man's language, only a human god can love and be loved."

"..."

What could I say? He has his own distorted view all figured out in his head, and running a sword through it was the only way to stop him. But there was one thing in his sermon that I couldn't object to - I had no right to judge him. A human container was lovable; I've lived with two of them, and I love them still.

**I even killed my own best friend** for their sake.

If you've been waiting for a confession, then this is it.

I had friend who I liked. I had a friend who saved my life. I had a friend who taught me the sword. **I had a friend at knifepoint.**

That knife could have been Rule Breaker. That might have worked. But **I needed to save energy, so** **I** used something else, and **killed her outright.**

I had the conscience of a villain since that day. **Such a betrayal can never be forgiven.**

Facing this twisted, driven man as he continued his pronouncements, I might as well be looking at a reflection of myself, or perhaps the Root's parody of my misdeeds.

"The current container enveloping us is not even a physical thing. It was the legend of a promise from the Root, made to this land. That legend itself was the container, a tale promising that when great troubles befall these isles, a leader will come to save us."

"...!"

"But this age is stagnant. The only army to beset us is starvation, murder, and natural disaster. That promise is no longer of any use, but lingers uselessly as an active conduit from the Root, continuously spewing whimsical fortunes on us without pride or shame. While death, suffering and destruction can bring existence and meaning, it's unforgivable that the container causing all of those things is something that has no feeling for what it gives and takes."

"Thus, I sought two fitting relics that will bring judgement on this Grail. The first is an ancient tome, which has imprinted the deeds and exploits of the Primordial King."

The Primordial King. Oh, no, no, no. Root forbid...

"With the Epic of Gilgamesh, I will call on the King of Heroes, a real man fit to be a god. The sum of his legends, his power, and his significance, will cause this one Grail to dwarf all others once he takes his proper place as the living container. He will walk amongst us, and conduct or filter the Root's influence as he wishes wherever he goes. The whole world will be remade to his liking within a year, and those who serve him may get a say in how the old world is carved."

"..."

Gilgamesh. It wasn't just his involvement that made me ponder why the damned Root has sent me here and now. It was more so about the old container. I knew the legend. I knew what it was. Perhaps no living person at present knew it better.

**Her** legend - the promise that a great king will one day return to lead Britain in a time of peril. That promise formed the container, and here I am, of all people, charged by the Root to protect its legacy. **Her** legacy.

I thought then that I knew what I had to do. As a counter-guardian, I had my two-fold objective. I had to prevent the birth of Gilgamesh, and preserve the old container of this Grail.

It wouldn't be enough to earn her forgiveness, but that wasn't the point. I just wanted to do something for her; the rest I didn't need to put into words.

"That's enough." I closed my eyes and let on a cutting, savage smile. "That's all I need to hear."

"But you'd miss the most important thing, Archer. Still not getting the point?" Fortwright continued to preach. "The container itself, being abstract, is impossible to destroy unless you target the physical relic that provides the container with meaning. For a thousand years no one guessed what that relic was, but the answer is so simple..."

"There is no proof that the legendary king ever existed, but it is said that there is a tome called the Annales Cambriae, or the 'Cambrian Archives,' that would prove that the king was real. Its name led magi and historians alike to assume that it was a manuscript of some kind, but throughout the ages that only led them to fakes and open ends."

"...!"

"I too thought the same, until the last Grail War, when I learned that the Cambrian Archives was a 'flesh-bound-tome.' Far from being a real book, it is actually the king's own bloodline, the surest proof that he had been real."

What did he say...? I only slightly frown instead of going wide-eyed when something shocking happens. But make no mistake, I was stunned.

Ervin meanwhile seemed to have fully recovered from his reinforcement-induced deafness. "You've gone loonie, Fortwright!" My master raised his voice above the madman's speech. "You're raving mad!"

As he took over the debate with the twisted magus, I re-studied my master's features again. And then, again.

"Let me tell you something else interesting, Ervin." Fortwright's recollected voice still could not hide his euphoric eyes and ecstatic grin. "In the last War, my Berserker fought a nameless master in the Snowdon foothills. The Grail manifested when the master was torn to ribbons, even when other servants were still alive."

"You're making this up."

"Am I? You'd be interested in the body's dissection. The crest on that master's chest came from a brutally inserted iron token. Does that sound familiar to you at all?"

"No...no..." My master's eyes went wide. I could tell he wasn't really answering no, but rather stuck in desperate denial.

"Well, I gouged a similar token from your sister. Almost identical, save hers was white while the former was black." With dramatic solemnity, Fortwright took out a pair of small iron tokens, and cast them down his platform into the aisles. My attention wasn't on the tokens, but on my master, who was about to rush to pick them up. I held him, lest this be another trap with chains waiting all around the bait.

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?" Ervin screamed as I held him in a tight grip. "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO HER?"

"For your selfishness, Ervin, Elise is dying as we speak. Giving up and joining her is the only way to redeem yourself."

"Enough." I stepped forward and pointed an empty hand against the twisted magus.

"Please, Archer." My master pleaded. "I can't ignore something like this."

"I feel the same, Ervin, but we'll have to get through Fortwright first." I projected my bow and readied weapons in my mind as I finished my sentence. "Go guard Brigit now. Keep her safe."

Just as Ervin gave a silent nod and went back to the other side of the aisle, I unleashed a torrent of cheap weapons at Fortwright. I figured out the weakness of his defences; assuming his chains are an ability derived from Enkidu, to serve as a precursor to his summoning of Gilgamesh, then it can be overwhelmed with low-divinity weapons.

Predictably his chains wrapped him in a bubble; but against attacks that are completely mundane, they acted like nothing more than an iron soft-shell that could not even stay rigid. Saved only from the sharp edges of the projectiles, the sheer force of their impacts beat on him mercilessly.

He opened a portal beneath his feet and began sinking into it. Even as he weathered a torrent of pummelling, he had the nerve to put in a parting word.

"Fate placed a curse on your lineage, Cambrian. You relinquished your chance to fight it, and now you'll be the last man of this age to suffer from a destiny running its course!"

I pumped a Hrunting into his empyrean portal after him as he disappeared. I don't know if it got him, but I wasn't hopeful.

I looked at my master again as I surveyed the damage. As he hurried over to the iron crests lying in the benches, I went to join him. Even before I laid my eyes on the crests, I could guess what they looked like. If these belonged to **her** children, their family icon would no doubt be Excalibur, Sword of the Promised Victory. Fortwright even said that the icon came in two colours, black and white, so there could be little doubt.

I begin to piece together this puzzle. All of her sons died very early, except the accidental son she begot with her own sister, Morgan Le Fey. Mordred Pendragon had a love-hate relation with his own progenitor, and his was the most well-known example of the Pendragon bloodline's curse of harming their own kin. Mordred's own sons were slain by Lancelot of the Lake, but as the legends only recorded men, there was a slim chance that there were surviving daughters that were left out of the books. Being descended from Morgan, they would inherit her magical circuits. And now it's evident that they've also kept an unusual but fitting way to pass on their family crest.

"Come on, mate. We've got to find-" Ervin's voice trailed off as he took his first serious look at the shape of his family crest. One would think that he'd be familiar with his own-

I wasn't about to say anything just then; or my voice would have trailed off too.

"By Root, mate, are you seeing this?" Ervin passed me the little icons in his palm. "I-I've had this thing sewn under my chest since I was five. I didn't remember what it looked like-"

Two icons, ten centimetres apiece. Wide curved blade, no clear crossguard. Telltale Yin-Yang at the root of the hilt.

Somehow, Kanshou and Byakuya have been serving as the Le Fey family crest. There was only one way how that could happen. Someone took to heart the idea of putting a sword in a kid's body, so that they might have a servant to call on when they are in trouble.

And because the smiths who forged these swords weren't heroic spirits themselves, using these icons as reagent could only call forth one person. There was no ambiguity in who these crests were meant to summon.

**It wasn't the Root who sent me to this time and place.**

**I was never here as a Counter-Guardian on duty.**

**I am only here because she wanted someone to save her children. And out of all the guardians she could have chosen, she trusted the fool of a boy who hung her out to dry.**

"Ervin. Go carry Brigit. Don't forget what you've committed to."

I was a step behind. My master already had her regenerated body in his arms.

"I think I know where your sister might be. If Fortwright uses this Abbey as his workshop, his most heinous experiments would happen right here."

"The catacombs, I bet." Ervin already found his way to a lightless grey, bare-cement stairwell, obscured behind a turn in the wall. It opened a path that led to the dark, damp tunnels below, and with Brigit in his arms, he boldly descended the stairs. Quickly, I fell in behind him, preparing my strongest weapons in my mind as I followed.

"So, Archer." Ervin spoke to me apprehensively without looking back. "Fortwright's talk of lineage was just bullocks, right?"

"No it wasn't, Ervin."

"…" Ervin breathed uneasily for a dozen steps, before collecting his voice again.

"Did you know all along?"

"No, Ervin. Not at all."

He nodded in brave but reluctant acceptance as we winded down the spiral, into the dark where the lights go out. My arm complained like it never has before, breaking into a dull, thumping fever as if the ever-cold steel inside was somehow going to melt and burn. I pushed it out of my mind.

**She** has asked me to do something for her. That meant more to me than anything else.

I'll earn it.


	19. Fate: Looping Corridor

The scattered lamplights dotting the tiled walls, hoisted on worn, rusted black racks, were meant to look like dim candles to deepen the sense of foreboding, but to Ervin it looked like a low ploy to frighten intruders.

In truth, the well-cleaned stone works and the faint, sweet incense, coupled with the well-ventilated fans that kept the spacious halls cool and dry, almost sedated the air with a sense of harmlessness.

But that can't be right. Ervin corrected himself as he went on ahead. This was supposed to be Fortwright's workshop. Root knows what he was doing to Elise right this instant, and he had to focus and hurry.

He chose Brigit over her. There was no qualm about that. But hearing that Elise was going to be killed, he couldn't just ignore his own sister, no matter how estranged.

Thoughts raced in head as he slowly paced the symmetric, rectangular halls of the dim catacombs. Brigit slept in his arms, weightless and bleached, as though her blood has bled dry. But she wasn't fading away. As long as he held her, they will both fine. As for Elise, he'll just have to focus on finding her. Every extraneous thought will slow him down...

"Archer, let's split up. We're losing time." Ervin feared the veteran might insist on not leaving his side, but the servant nodded readily. As the underground hall split in three ways, the servant took the left fork while the master took the right with his damsel in tow.

"Master." Archer called as before he disappeared around the corner. "Should your path continue to branch, take right at every turn, and I will catch up to you."

"Right." Ervin nodded and explored cautiously down the hall. Unlike Archer's usual conduct, the servant's plan was far from foolproof. But this was the fastest way to cover as much ground as they could, and Archer was anxious to save Elise as well.

The halls were dim but not prohibitively so. It was lit enough to for him to see that the walls were so well-cemented that there could be no contraptions hidden in the masonry. The lamps pointed upwards, so he could see the roof as well - there were marks of age and corrosion, but nothing more.

Ervin went on down the hall; there was a corridor leading left in the distance, but heeding Archer's suggestion he opted to go straight instead. The tedium of checking each step for traps was wearing Ervin out, and it compounded on his fear of Fortwright's vague threat that Elise was being slowly killed.

Archer seemed to know something about his family curse, but Ervin no longer cared so much. There was no one else affected besides Elise, and if she really threatened Brigit, then, well...

Best not to think so far ahead. He had to find her first.

***Scene Break***

_I analyzed the construction of the tunnels as I went along. Though this whole building had little to do with swords, I could still apply my ability to get a vague sense of the building's blueprints. The architecture was fairly simple, and everything looked rather symmetrical before the fork. That symmetry, coupled with the constant ventilated breeze, led me to guess that these tunnels didn't have too many dead ends._

_That is, in terms of structure. It was up to me to make sure that the same could be said in terms of my master's life._

_I've been past two forks now, both of which led to my right, through the middle fork, and into Ervin's fork on the far right. The rooms were dim but reasonably lit, and I could hear Ervin's footsteps in the distance. I also noted the solid feeling under my own boots, as well as how the catacomb walls were much thicker at the base. All these facts hinted that there was no other floor below this one._

_This catacomb was nothing more than a clean basement. But that was bad news rather than good - where did that bastard put Elise?_

_But then, I sensed some tiny movement up ahead, with the click-snick sound of something small scurrying on the floor. In light of this well-cleaned basement, the fat rat that appeared around the corner seemed as out of place as the handful of loose crumbs it was munching on. The plump rodent was lazily scavenging the bits and pieces of sprinkled food, unafraid of my approaching footsteps, as it dallied under a fist-sized hole at the base of the wall. I studied the small cracks in the masonry, and they outlined a neat rectangle of bricks that were disconnected from the backdrop._

_It didn't take structural analysis to see that this was a trap door. Having found the gate to the next dungeon, I backtracked quickly to Ervin to lead him over. I was quite relieved when I saw him unharmed._

_"Master?"_

_"Archer?" He turned around, still carrying Brigit's sleeping body in his arms._

_"This way, quickly."_

***Scene Break***

Caster spread the last of his bread crumbs as he continued along the labyrinthine crypt. His kidnapped master was being held in this very dungeon, but it would be completely impossible for him to reach Lady Cambrian alive.

His noble phantasm has foretold that outcome as a fact.

Lady Cambrian has smartly ordered him to be very cautious about trying to prophesize their own futures, lest he would accidentally set something bad in stone. But when he sensed that his master has been abducted, he knew that he had to make a gambit, and use his trump card before it was too late.

He flipped his journal, Les Prophecies, to the first blank page at the back. Expending a great deal of prana to tamper with the threads of fate, he has attempted to predict and influence his master's safety.

But there was something so overwhelmingly strong gnawing away at Lady Cambrian's life, that the first words scorched onto the page warned him that if he tried to confront this fated force, it would spell his doom. If he tried to save Elise, he would die without ever getting to her.

He closed the book then; but he didn't alter his course. Since his master's life hung by a thread, he didn't have a choice.

In truth, he felt rather protective over this young woman. Their master-servant affinity arose from their struggles against fate and fortune, and Caster saw through his clairvoyance that she was taking up arms against an overwhelming odd, something that the Root has virtually written in stone. He did not dare to probe more, in fear that he might prophesize a nail into her looming coffin; but the old man was resolved in saving this girl, as though it would ease his regrets over his own lost children.

Caster was a master of fate. Even if his own noble phantasm did not spell things in his favour, he had ways to get around things.

He continued along the lightless maze, his clairvoyance telling him clearly which way to turn at every fork. Death drew closer with each passing step, but it would betray its own nature more and more.

Despite its previous failings, Caster readied his noble phantasm one last time. To use it effectively, he had to first study the target, to make sure which aspects of it could be influenced. Proximity in both space and time enhanced the acuity of his vision, so if he closed in on his enemy without regards for his own survival, he would have a very solid foundation for his attack.

There was no sound, no movement in the decrepit halls; but Caster's senses were smothered to the brim. There was no more time to enhance the precision of his spell, so he began to channel the remainder of his energy into his tome. The elusive, fast-approaching force had a tragic fixation on Lady Cambrian. But weaving into the realm of destiny one last time, Caster seized the fated thread at point-blank, and redirected its deadly needle far away, into the unknown.

The old man's death was so brutally quick, that his remains plastered over the stone walls before it could begin to dematerialize and disappear.

***Scene Break***

The stone door easily gave way under Archer's push, and Ervin led the way inside. As the tunnel darkened around them, a bluish hue spilled out from under Ervin's coat. The battered hilt from the museum was glowing, but Ervin didn't have a free hand to hold it. Archer took charge of the broken sword then, and used it as a flashlight to let his master keep a view of what was ahead.

Unlike the well-kept halls they've left behind, this decrepit place gave off the feel of a haunting crypt. Damp, mouldy smells, coupled with dust and webs led Ervin to briefly imagine that he was breathing stale air that has been polluted by the corpse gas of exhumed bodies. Steeling his nerves, he carried on.

The maze was much less ordered than the outer halls. Here all semblance of symmetry was gone, and apprehension from the unknown blackness plagued them at every turn. The hilt in Archer's hand grunted uneasily, and Ervin's hearing gradually improved. But even then, he could not feel anything markedly usual.

"Archer, I can't sense much in this dungeon."

"Could be an effect of Fortwright's workshop." The servant warned. "It might hamper our ability to perceive threats."

Ervin nodded and slowed down, walking abreast with his servant to reduce the severity of any surprise attacks.

"Ah-?"

Brigit's light body stirred, stretched, and flailed several times in Ervin's arms. Relieved after being briefly startled, Ervin kept his arms firmly raised. His forearms have long begun to grow sore, but he has endured it to the point where his body became used to the strain.

"Mmm...!"

Her wits came back a bit slower than her senses, but the awkward feeling of being held and suspended still gave her a decently quick, albeit uncomfortable awakening. She wiggled again, consciously this time, to drop herself down to the ground.

"Brigit. You okay?" Ervin came to a brief stop to help her stand.

"Ervin...!" For a second she was immersed in the joy of seeing him, but the returning memory from the cathedral halls splashed on her head like cold water.

"Where is Saber?"

"..." Ervin was suddenly at a loss. He had been so set on his course that he overlooked a simple technicality. If Brigit lost her servant, then she was no longer eligible for the Grail. He himself still had his servant, but even his rights as a defeated master was contentious at best. Having fully realized this just now, Ervin tried his best to appear determined; but a shadow begin to loom in his heart, casting the doubt that his stubbornness was nothing more than mere denial.

"It's too early to say." Archer interjected from the side, his voice even more stern than usual. "Listen, both of you. You are still masters, and it will remain that way unless you lose your nerves and quit. There is still a command seal left between the two of you, so the responsibility to persist is still in your hands."

"Archer is right." The goddess nodded quickly, aware of what the orange-haired mortal spirit was getting at. This wasn't just for herself anymore; if she faltered, the boy who's given up so much for her would be completely ruined.

"Right mate, I'm not giving up now." Brigit's attitude has set Ervin straight as well. He turned to her again, no longer fumbling for words. "Brigit, I hope this will sit well with you, but I have to find and save my sister."

She began to nod. "Mmhmm. I'm sure-"

"GET BACK!" Archer's warning echoed through the twisting forks of the stone halls. Ervin's magic circuits overheated as a screeching prana burst clashed against Archer's seven-layered shield, blowing loose a shower of cutting shards from the surrounding masonry.

Ervin turned his back away from Archer and towards Brigit, so that he could safely shield her face from the shrapnel. Brigit raised her hand at something behind Ervin, and was about to open her mouth, but a garbled sound from Archer froze her to a halt.

"_...! Do not_...!"

Ervin couldn't make out Archer's words, but he could read Brigit's lips as she turned her face back this way with a struggling expression in her eyes.

Run.

The dark corridor quaked as Brigit dragged him away; when Ervin turned back to steal one last look at his servant behind him, the sights of his red cape and black chest plate were already disappearing behind a blockade of collapsing stone.

Archer has sealed off the tunnel, blocking off whatever it was that has come their way.

Ervin turned back to Brigit, and then thought of Elise. They were allies that might last indefinitely, while Archer's existence was timed. For now, his servant's safety could only come third.

Ervin beat down the welling feeling of shame and guilt. The die was cast, and the only practical way now of not letting Archer down was to stop looking back. He turned back to Brigit again, and led her down a different branch deeper inside the maze. As the singing of deadly instruments faded into the distance, Ervin could hear the sound of his own footsteps bouncing off the walls. He made use of his warped senses, anticipating two to three forks ahead at every turn.

Brigit tagged closely behind with a small ball of fire to light the path, and probed all around her for any traces of lingering prana that might mark a trail...

A sense of frustrated, apprehensive confusion began to mount. They didn't know where Elise was, what dangers she faced, or how long she had left to live. They guessed she was down here, guessed that it wasn't too late, and guessed that she was still alive.

But they bit their lips and kept forging ahead. Analysis wasn't their strong point, so hope was all that they had to hold onto.

***Scene Break***

_My master didn't get a chance to see the assailant before I brought the tunnel down between us, but Brigit was facing the precise direction to get a full glimpse. Her fleeting first reaction was a shocked expression that silently exclaimed "impossible." Then, as she came to her full senses and attempted to use an absolute restraining order on her rampant servant, I stopped her._

_"Brigit! Do not spend the command seal!" I made my voice hard enough to carry the point across, and the small goddess understood me enough to make a run for it with my master in tow._

_As a heroic spirit, her raw magic parameter was well above mine. What I could observe about our new enemy's aura, Brigit could probably sense just as clearly. Saber was not the same._

_His figure was still confined in that familiar suit of armour. His shape and features remained the same. But something different has come alive just beneath his surface. Surrounding him was either a presence that has been put out of tune, or a newly restored presence that had been broken to begin with._

_Naturally, my first suspicion was that Fortwright has managed to wrest control of Saber from Brigit, and left this illegally obtained servant to guard his workshop. But regardless of whether my guess was right or not, he has done more than enough to label himself as an enemy._

_I attacked him at point-blank, setting up a chain of six moves to attack his face, groin, neck, heart, in that order, before I'd pass by him with a side-slash and throw both swords at his exposed back on the turnaround._

_Relying on a stubborn stance rather than agility, he responded by attacking my weapon at every exchange. It was obvious from the weight of his swings that had I dared to lock weapons with him even once, he would have cleft right through my swords, and maul my arms beyond repair._

_Instead I had to keep him unbalanced; when one move failed, I immediately moved on to the next. I attacked from every direction, never targeting the same place twice in a row, and never letting our weapons fully clash._

_My agility parameter wasn't the highest, and I'd have instead preferred to fight with magic. But here, foolishly playing my highest stat would only get me killed._

_What really mattered in a fight were the relative parameters between the combatants. His initial prana burst blew through five layers of Rho Aias, which puts his raw magic potential above mine. But meanwhile his speed was unbecoming. So, my lower stat was actually giving me the advantage._

_"Become Fortwright's pawn, have you?" I taunted him. "I thought you were at least loyal to your own master, but it looks like you can't be credited with even that."_

_"-No-..."_

_There was a strange echo in his voice that didn't match the acoustics of the corridor._

_"-Fortwright seeks to begin the ritual. I seek to get out of it-"_

_I figured out the aberration in his voice. It was as though numerous identical voices spoke together at once._

_No, more accurately, it was like multiples copies of the same person speaking the same things. Even the same person cannot always say the same thing with the exact same tone, and the minute differences overlapped with an unsettlingly unusual ring._

_And if two voices sounded exactly the same, I wouldn't be able to tell them apart. So I could not guess how many voices really overlapped._

_I didn't know who or what this knight was; I didn't know why he thinks he can extract himself from Fortwright's plans by taking out Ervin. But I wasn't about to let him succeed. I closed in again, and used every possible factor on site to gain an advantage. I consistently forced Saber around in the narrow corridor, so that the wall itself would obstruct his swings. By handicapping him this way, for a time the initiative was completely mine._

_But the melee took a steady toll on my stamina, and I didn't find any gaps for a decisive strike. Saber put his back to the wall and switched from a long sword to a short sword and a shield, poised clearly to hold ground and wear me out._

_I had to begin by lowering his endurance, even if I had to tax my mismatched circuits a little further. I feigned an attack by launching my twin blades at Saber's magnetic weapon. As Kanshou adhered to his weapon, Byakuya spun wildly, bouncing off the walls and coming back to him, only to curve away again when Saber instinctively tried to parry. By the time he solved the puzzle by blocking with his shield, I've widened the distance between us enough to attack at range._

_"Toei, kaishi."_

_Tracing begins with concept, then structure, composition, production, and history._

_A weapon that inflicted curse and poison, a longbow over a metre high with a crossbow-like loader, a single piece of wood carved from a tree that led to the underworld, oiled with extracts from poisonous vines... all were components that made the Yew Bow of Sherwood, bane of tyrants._

_Within the bow's loader I readied Hrunting, a weapon that was already conducive to rapid-fire attacks. Even if my opponent blocks the first attack, the second missile will come almost immediately after, followed by the final third. I would channel more and more energy into the bow, making each extra attack carry more severe status ailments, until the bow itself breaks for the third shot._

_"Hrunting." The execution was nearly instant; the pace of battle didn't allow anything less. Saber blocked the first attack with a glassy-looking shield, which cracked under impact. He overcharged his sword and threw it against the ceiling between us, and that attracted my second missile and made it veer off-course. I fired my last attack then, making broken phantasms of both the sword and the bow._

_For a brief moment, Saber had no weapons left on hand to defend against my attack._

_He'd probably call out his blood shield to heal himself through, but even if he did that the curse and lowered status would remain on him._

_"..."_

_I didn't realize just then that he was laughing. In hindsight it was at least a dozen different laughs pasted on top of each other. They each switched to a groan, a gasp, or a cry when Hrunting scored a crater on his side._

_Even as a thick shade of crimson engulfed the massive sword in his right hand, the blood shield in his left pulsed and pumped to restore his wounds. He showed no sign of weakening._

_Now with me at a distance, he had no more concerns that I'd force him into a position where he couldn't swing a large sword. This wasn't the first time where he used his own wounds to fuel his next attack. I knew he was fully charged, and this was his chance._

_"-Logos Morior-"_

_His incantation was the sound of a ghastly chorus; his layered voice and the extinct language on his tongue compounded on its doleful effects._

_"-Terminus est-"_

_His raised one of his many nameless swords, unknown to any common legend. What was his connection to this time and place? _

_I needed to subdue him to find out; I might even want to reclaim him from Fortwright to bolster Ervin's forces._

_I'll have to blow another trump card today._

_It takes a month to trace even a vastly inferior copy of this 'God Holder,' so this was essentially one-time use. I entered stance empty-handed, projecting nothing that he could see in this darkness, and chanting nothing that he could hear at this range._

_"-ENTROPIOUS!-"_

_Rather than cutting through the air as a wavefront of razors, the thin, focused starting edge of his attack disintegrated everything it touched. But it went no further._

_Last drawn, first to strike._

_I released Fragarach, a deceptively small sword hidden inside a floating lead ball. As soon as Saber made his move, Fragarach detected the active noble phantasm and counterattacked. Armed with the inherent ability to reverse the initiative of a combat exchange, the tiny sword cuts backwards in time. It silences the enemy attack that it responded against, and deals damage proportional to the power of the attack that it silenced._

_My traced weapons are always a grade lower than their originals, so it didn't kill Saber outright. Which was just as well, for I had a different finishing move in store for him._

_I closed in on the dark knight, who was in shock from losing his own arms from their elbows down. The large shield worn on his wrist crashed to the ground, and he was briefly cut off from his own defences. The slow child was helpless once deprived of his parrying tools, and his entire torso was left wide open._

_As I slammed Rule Breaker into his mutated heart, I felt the weak knife grind against something that was unnaturally hard._

***Scene Break***

Brigit felt a burning pain on her hand. There were once three seals there, ornate scars forming the image of a lion and an unicorn, hoisting a heraldic shield. The lion was spent to protect Ervin, the unicorn was lost, and now to her chagrin, the shield too has disappeared.

"It's not over." She proclaimed quietly when Ervin stopped in his tracks. Seeing Ervin's eyes wander to her aching hand, she gathered all the guts from her frail soul, sharpened her voice, and precisely lipped every syllable in her words.

"Hurry! We're not stopping here!"

"Of course. I promised that already." He coupled a nod with a firmly raised voice before lifting up her small hands. "I was just making to make sure you aren't hurt."

The sound of his voice rang in the dark halls, echoing back onto him as if whatever ghosts lurking beyond have been bearing witness to his words.

"..."

Brigit was about to urge him back on task when Ervin suddenly raised a hand for silence. His eyes darted a few times before he gave Brigit a gentle tug.

"This way. She's alive!"

Brigit followed behind him, trusting that she didn't need to double-check the faint presence with her own senses. Instead, much of her mind rested on her servant, and the visions that visited her while she was lying limp on the cathedral floor.

***Scene Break***

**Existence begins as a waking dream.**

**Being disembowelled was simple maintenance. Toxic fluids were injected as nourishment. To flush out and replace blood was a changing of clothing.**

If every sensation was exactly the same, living a life now was no different than watching the previous one on video. The body can't tell the difference between feeling firsthand, or watching it take place.

**The ritual labelled as 'birth' was a ceremony for the twice-born, those who showed promise. If it was to mean the beginning of something, then 'birth' has lost its meaning.**

But there was always consciousness, always awake like a lidless eye. It would eventually recall why all of this was done. Every reformed joint, every de-saturated cell, every extra magic circuit, was geared towards their one function, their 'purpose.'

They were to serve as champions of The Order, the ruling caste that taught the populace that their purpose was set in stone from birth. These champions embody this fact, for they were all rebuilt, or 'born,' for the purpose that was given to them.

These enforcers were said to be of divine descent, and they were given names, and were said to be filled with the spirits of their 'origins.'

But a particular subject, though statistically too lucrative to recycle, was a clear failure. Whatever the reason, it was kept in a cell after being rebuilt, and became a test prototype for more successful champions. They never gave it a name, calling it only by a number.

For other champions, birth seemed to have made them something more. But for IT, birth only stripped it of its humanity.

One day its rescuer came, someone naive who couldn't acknowledge this thing as an IT. It was taught that had everyone acknowledged this thing as an IT, it would remain an IT. But because that rescuer didn't acknowledge that fact, it ceased to be IT.

His saviour didn't presume to name him, as that might determine his path. When she succumbed to The Order's inquisitorial assassins, the wretched, nameless survivor tried to make a promise to ease her passing.

**"I'm going to be somebody."**

But she shook her head. "No, you were always a person, so you'll have to find yourself. Don't write yourself in stone."

He took her words to heart, and reasoned that if he was always human, he could find out who he was before he was born.

He wandered his world, living and fighting as a champion for those who didn't want their purpose written in stone. Somehow, he would earn his name back.

Meanwhile, The Order lost control of its other enforcers. Those beings with greater vision, sought a way manifest Gilgamesh, god of The Order. They began by sacrificing the very clerics that engineered their bodies and souls, and then repeated the same rites on the populace.

The nameless wanderer fought many of his former betters on his journey; but as his road came to an end, so did his life. One day he finally came to know his name, but he was slain by the strongest of the rampaging champions soon after.

**"My name... is ... ..."** He told himself as his life ebbed away. But even his last bit of happiness did not accompany him to the grave.

With the recollection of his name, came the recollection of his existence.

**He has already led this life countless times.**

As his consciousness faded, the world died again, drowning in its own circular blood. The wanderer's memories were marred with curses of the dying, condemning him for being a false hope and a failure.

As ... ... passed away with damning accusations behind his back, a shade of Gilgamesh manifested to remake the same lush, destroyable world once more, using the same spare container. IT.

By being the container that allowed the world to die over and over again, his sin was thought to be his very existence. As people in his world died to the final ritual, those who had a glimpse of truth cursed the nameless container for existing.

**Why does it have to be like this?** As many times as this was accusatively asked at him, he asked the same question himself.

But there was no meaning in asking why. The Prima Causa of the world was human-like, so the only answer was that Gilgamesh willed it to be that way.

There was no way to end that existence. Each repeated life saw the same people coming to know his name. His fame was the number of people he tried to save per life, multiplied by his number of lives. In time, in between his absurd cycles, he finally found himself a resting place in the remotest corners of the Root.

In ancient times, many religions held that the path to immortality lay in the slow accumulation of good deeds, over many lifetimes. But for the Failure that has been rewarded this, it became eternal Nightmare.

***Scene Break***

_There was a far away look in Saber's eyes. The disparate layers of his voice have sewn themselves back together after Fortwright's hypnosis wore off. He has brought his tale to an end, and sat silently on a pile of ruined stone._

_"I've one question, kid." I looked squarely into his ghoulish eyes. "Do you regret your actions in life?"_

_"Tch. Doesn't make much sense to ask, does it? Even if my mind forgets, the body's sixth sense would remember some things from one life to the next. If there had been anything particularly regretful, I'd have fixed it in time."_

_"Contradicts your actions though." I pointed out. "You're trying damn hard to disappear for good."_

_"It's far from meaning I don't regret anything at all."_

_He didn't need to convince me on that one, so I didn't answer him directly. "Now that both commands to spare and kill Ervin have gone void, what do you plan to do?"_

_"Who knows. But without Fortwright's hypnosis, I won't hurt Brigit."_

_"Well, if you care for Brigit, the least you can do is tell her what you know of Fortwright's magecraft when you see her."_

_I didn't bother with any gestures to make him follow me down the corridor. "Let's go. And remember this, if you try anything funny, I'll kill you easily."_

_"Nobody can say that." He mumbled and caught up to me, and we began navigating the catacomb's' winding turns. His steps were growing heavy; no regeneration can make up for the fact that his link to Brigit has been severed._

_"Fortwright's hypnosis manifests a person's 'roots,' or 'origins,' using the subject's original consciousness as sacrifice. It's the same magecraft that's used to create champions in my time. If the origin carries a curse, that curse manifests as well."_

_"Ervin could have used the Grail to rid the curse." He added. "But no, he chose to be irresponsible. It's why I don't like him."_

_Irresponsible - that makes two of them._

********************************************************************************Chapter End**********************************

*************************************************************************Servant Stat Unlocked: Saber****************************

Class: Saber

Master: Brigit De Danann

True Name: Gael Cambrian

Sex: Male

Height/Weight: 167cm, 60kg

Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

***Parameters:***

Strength: B

Magical Energy: B – A++

Endurance: B – A+

Luck: E

Agility: E

Noble Phantasm: C

***Class Abilities:***

Magic Resistance: D: cancels single-action spells; protection level similar to a warding amulet.

***Skills:***

BattleContinuation: A: possesses tools to become impossibly resistant to fatal injuries. Life will linger on the verge of death, buying time for a comeback.

Fallen Hero: C: indicates a hero that has strayed from his path during his lifetime. The servant is barred from his full potential, but has (been forced to) become more adept at his more basic abilities.

Mind's Eye: B: allows for calm analysis of any combat situation, and make rational decisions despite imminent threats or distractions. This greatly increases his chances of making a comeback when seemingly outmatched.

Free Energy: A++: as Saber receives wounds in battle, airborne mana will diffuse into his bloodstream, periodically raising his magical energy to A++. When this happens, the servant is able to use prana burst. Because the current timeline is seeing a low concentration of airborne mana at the present, Saber cannot receive full benefits from this ability.

***Noble Phantasms:***

Iris Girdle: Saber hails from a world where portable magecraft can be manufactured in the form of artificial magic circuits imprinted inside crafted gems. Saber has eight such gems socketed into his steel belt, each containing a unique weapon inside that can be called fourth or dismissed at will.

Rank: C – B

Type: Anti-Unit

Range: 1 – 100 (Depending on Weapon)

Target: 1 – 50 (Depending on Weapon)

Endless Lives: Saber comes from a circular timeline, where he fails to save his world time and time again. The limited fame from the people that he was able to help along each of his lives added upon itself until he accumulated enough total recognition to qualify as a heroic spirit. This 'useless' noble phantasm is actually the culmination of all his past lives, and thus far exists only inside his own soul as a mockery of his endless failures as a hero.

Rank: EX

Type: Unknown

Range: Unknown

Target: Unknown


End file.
